I just want to add a small consideration to your explanation.

Daimorro is asking why knowing is a necessary assumption. I think a better explanation will acknowledge the word reject , as it is found in the conclusion, as an action. As in those people are actively rejecting a hypothesis and in order to do that you must know what you are rejecting.

Basically what Daimorro is suggesting is that, for example:

If you accept that the earth is round then naturally you reject the hypothesis that the earth is flat. Even if you are not actively making that connection. Because, after all, how could it be both?

I think Daimorro's interpretation would stand better if it instead said "Therefore, most of the scientists would reject the Minsk Hypothesis". And in this case you would not require the assumption that they know, since the conclusion is considering that already by stating " they would reject" if presented with said information.

Also, Daimorro, in a way you are making an assumption that these scientists couldn't have some irrational understanding/misunderstanding that the earth could be round and also somehow accept the hypothesis that the earth was flat. This could ultimately be a result of their lack of understanding that when something is considered to be round it cannot also be flat. Therefore, it would be necessary to say that "they know that if its round then it cannot also be flat."

To add, we don't know the complexity of any of the hypothesis/experiments mentioned in the stem. Therefore, it could be even more justifiable to infer the possibility that they could unknowingly accept both even if there was a major contradiction.

Ugh I chose D because I didn't notice the shift from "light reflecting off earth" to "the heating of the atmosphere". I kind of approached this as if we were talking about the heating of the planet itself, not the atmosphere.

I hate this explanation. At the beginning JY indicates that because the stem indicates that since the two groups of families in the experiment are "similar" we should accept that everything else has been held equal or "represented equally"; such as their health, social status, demographics, etc.

So if anything I feel as though JY is strengthening the truth of the conclusion. If we accept that all other variables are equally represented between the two "similar" groups then we should accept the conclusion that its the book that is causing an increase in health which would lead to the decrease in doctors visits. Since, we are assuming the health in one group wouldn't have been significantly better than the health in the other group, they should be the same.

It seems like in order to justify the correct AC we have to assume that both the book and the better health of the group with the books were both separately a cause for the effect of visiting the doctor less. But this goes again JY's reasoning since we have no other explanation for why the health is better in one group vs the other.

Am I over thinking this or overlooking something important?

#help

Thanks! Your explanation on how the authors conclusions that "“we should not conclude that volcanic activity caused the spike on Venus,” is stating that she believes that the volcanoes did not cause the spike on Venus." is helpful in understanding why the conclusion is interpreted as it is.

I thought about this yesterday and I have an alternate explanation to propose:

Premise: No active volcanoes have been identified on Venus

Conclusion: We should not conclude that volcanoes caused the spike on Venus.

Weaken AC: Conditions on Venus make it unlikely that any instrument targeting Venus would detect a volcanic eruption directly.

Therefore, the weaken AC is suggesting it's possible there is indirect evidence of volcanos that HAS been detected, the scientist just doesn't know it. Which would invalidate the premise and serve as a strong weaken AC.

Even now, I am not sure this is a very strong way to think about it because the premise says "no active volcanos have been identified; which, again, AC (A) kind of supports that premise.

But as I think about this further, it would make more sense to understand the authors conclusion as indicating they do not think volcanos caused the spike. Especially since the author lends no credence to the possibility that there could be volcanos since there is no evidence for or against their presence.

Total crap question imo.

I am having trouble accepting AC (A).

It seems, to me, that the author is simply stating that we shouldn't conclude that the spike was caused by volcanic activity, I didn't read it as though the author was saying volcanos didn't cause the spike because we have no evidence of volcanos... etc.

If the author is arguing: Volcanos didn't cause spike in atmosphere because there is no evidence of volcanos, then A works in weakening because it is essentially saying we just can't detect them therefore we can't conclude there is no volcanic activity.

If the author is arguing: We can't conclude the volcanos caused the spike then imo AC (A) doesn't weaken the argument. Instead, it supports the premise that we have not detected any volcanic activity by saying that we are unable to detect such activity therefore its appropriate to argue that we should not conclude volcanos caused the spike.

Can someone help me with this? Obviously, my reasoning is flawed given JY's explanation and the fact that AC (A) is correct.

#help

I feel like AC (A) is better explained when you take into account the premise that indicates average visits per a rep went down.

When you have more reps, of course average visits would decrease, since now any individual rep would see less physicians because they have more co-workers to lighten the load. This ultimately refutes the conclusion drawn by the author.

Is PTM20 not considered pretest 90? Also, I noticed PTM20 only has 3 sections but Lawhub includes 4 (a second LR section). Is there a reason the second LR section isn't on 7sage?

I wish there was a better explanation for why C is wrong.

Why didn't he diagram the first sentence?

I did too. And I am convinced that even after watching this explanation I still would not choose the correct answer. Answer choice E is still very attractive.

I thought this as well