Sure! You are right that it says two organisms would merge through endosymbiosis and one organism would engulf the other. So, it could be true that C (I just call it C) could be the same organism that engulfed whatever other organism that it engulfed and now has this extra gene that makes this unusual nucleomorph.

Here are my thoughts for why AC A-D are incorrect. If they still don't help, let me know. Always happy to talk through it more in-depth:

A) This is going too far/too strong. We ONLY know that in this instance, an organism (C) that engulfed another organism (we don't know what) through endosymbiosis has an unusual nucleomorph. For all we know, ALL organisms in existence can have nucleomorphs. The stimulus tells us nothing about this.

B) Again, too strong. We know that this nucleomorph in C contains ONE gene that was carried over from the organism that was engulfed through endosymbiosis. However, we don't know that that is all the genetic material that was carried over. Maybe there was more and maybe those other genes are stored somewhere else.

C) We have two issues with this AC. First, we are never told HOW nucleomorphs form. We are only told that they exist within C and maybe they existed before endosymbiosis happened. Second, it has the process of endosymbiosis backward. C was the plant that engulfed the other organism and survived. This AC is telling us C was the one that was engulfed.

D) We are never told what triggers endosymbiosis. We are only told what happens when the process happens. There could be 100 or 1000 different sufficient conditions for endosymbiosis to occur. Maybe they also occur in organisms that do not have nucleomorphs. We just don't know. Therefore, we can't choose this AC.

This is a top-down question. We need to choose the answer that is supported by the facts. AC A-D all are too strong or add in facts that are not included in the stimulus. We prefer to have something that is either weaker or directly supported by the facts of the argument, and that is AC E.

Yes! You are totally on the right track. We are NOT told what organism was engulfed to form the new plant (C). We just know that this process happened because there are now TWO versions of the gene in the nucleomorph, and scientists would only find one of them if C was not formed through endosymbiosis.

The second gene in the nucleomorph would be the part of the organism that was engulfed by C and was carried over as a "functioning part" of C.

Does that help? I am always happy to help talk through questions in more detail.

Hey! As mentioned above for a few other people, I will leave my explanation of the stimulus below. Let me know if this helps! Always happy to talk through questions!

So, we get a little background on what endosymbiosis is in the first part of the stimulus. It tells us that it is a process through which one organism engulfs another and retains at least some of the organism that was engulfed as a functional part of the new organism. Whew...that was a mouthful and we haven't even gotten to the argument...

We then learn a little about this new plant, C. I know it has a fancy name, but I like to make things easier on myself, so I named it C. The cool thing about C is that it has this unusual nucleomorph. How is it unusual? Well, it has two versions of a particular gene. Odd thing is, that if C didn't use endosymbiosis to form, they would expect to only find one version of the gene.

We can do a quick conditional map of this in our heads:

If no endosymbiosis then only one gene (/E → 1G)

However, we know that there are TWO versions of the gene. This means that the necessary condition is failed and we take the contrapositive leading us to conclude that C was in fact formed through endosymbiosis.

/1G → E

As you pointed out, you were able to eliminate all the other answers because they were incorrect by either misinterpreting the facts in the stimulus or going too far and being too strong. This is a MSS. We would prefer to have a weaker AC here that is directly supported by the facts. If it is too strong and is not directly supported, it is almost certainly wrong.

Hey Katy! Please see my explanation of the stimulus that I left for another person below. Let me know if this helps!

So, we get a little background on what endosymbiosis is in the first part of the stimulus. It tells us that it is a process through which one organism engulfs another and retains at least some of the organism that was engulfed as a functional part of the new organism. Whew...that was a mouthful and we haven't even gotten to the argument...

We then learn a little about this new plant, C. I know it has a fancy name, but I like to make things easier on myself, so I named it C. The cool thing about C is that it has this unusual nucleomorph. How is it unusual? Well, it has two versions of a particular gene. Odd thing is, that if C didn't use endosymbiosis to form, they would expect to only find one version of the gene.

We can do a quick conditional map of this in our heads:

If no endosymbiosis then only one gene (/E → 1G)

However, we know that there are TWO versions of the gene. This means that the necessary condition is failed and we take the contrapositive leading us to conclude that C was in fact formed through endosymbiosis.

/1G → E

As you pointed out, you were able to eliminate all the other answers because they were incorrect by either misinterpreting the facts in the stimulus or going too far and being too strong. This is a MSS. We would prefer to have a weaker AC here that is directly supported by the facts. If it is too strong and is not directly supported, it is almost certainly wrong.

Hey! Good question. So, we get a little background on what endosymbiosis is in the first part of the stimulus. It tells us that it is a process through which one organism engulfs another and retains at least some of the organism that was engulfed as a functional part of the new organism. Whew...that was a mouthful and we haven't even gotten to the argument...

We then learn a little about this new plant, C. I know it has a fancy name, but I like to make things easier on myself, so I named it C. The cool thing about C is that it has this unusual nucleomorph. How is it unusual? Well, it has two versions of a particular gene. Odd thing is, that if C didn't use endosymbiosis to form, they would expect to only find one version of the gene.

We can do a quick conditional map of this in our heads:

If no endosymbiosis then only one gene (/E → 1G)

However, we know that there are TWO versions of the gene. This means that the necessary condition is failed and we take the contrapositive leading us to conclude that C was in fact formed through endosymbiosis.

/1G → E

As you pointed out, you were able to eliminate all the other answers because they were incorrect by either misinterpreting the facts in the stimulus or going too far and being too strong. This is a MSS. We would prefer to have a weaker AC here that is directly supported by the facts. If it is too strong and is not directly supported, it is almost certainly wrong.

Hey! Great question. I am surprised when the right answer jumps off the page at me, especially when it is AC A, however, as you gain proficiency in the test, you gain a better intuition for the right answers. If you engage actively with the stimulus and ACs, this intuition can become even stronger over time.

I am not too surprised when the answer is A, because it has to be at some point, right? Additionally, if you pick something else as the AC, you have to have a good reason to NOT choose AC A. For this question, AC A is the only one that truly resolves the paradox here. You have to be careful about excluding an AC just because it is AC A or there might be a string of ACs that are the same for multiple consecutive questions. The LSAT does this, and it isn't a good reason to not choose and AC.

Just engage with the material, make sure you can confidently prove why the right answer is right and the wrong answers are wrong, and try to focus as much attention to the substance of the test without paying too much attention to which letter you are choosing.

You got it right on the timed section, so I bet you do have an intuitive understanding of the material. Sometimes, you just need to trust that!

Hey all! For me, AC A does target the support for the conclusion and not the conclusion itself.

The argument is "Hey! We found this weird projectile in this mastodon. I wonder where it came from? Oh, well it seems different than the ones made by the group of Eurasians that live closest to North America and Eurasians just happened to enter right before the peak of the Ice Age. I MUST conclude that this came from a group from a more distant part of Eurasia!"

Why? What if a different group of people made it? What if it was from people already in North America that made it? What if it fell from space and killed the mastodon? What if there was this special porcupine back in the day that could shoot out super cool looking projectiles?" I just need something that weakens the idea that it HAD to come from distant Eurasians

AC A is great because it says it doesn't match ANY projectile from all of Eurasia. This helps us poke a hole in the argument and say "Not so fast. We can't just willy nilly conclude that from the evidence! What if it came from somewhere else?" You are sticking a wedge between the premises and the conclusion to not allow you to definitively draw the conclusion.

Maybe it really did come from Eurasia and archeologists just haven't found a community that used them yet. The conclusion MIGHT still be true and we aren't telling the author, you are FOR SURE wrong. We are just telling the author that it is harder for us to believe them because of this new piece of evidence.

Hey! Wanted to hop in and see if I can help. My issue with AC D is that you have 2 duties that you have to weigh for the psychiatrist. You have the duty to report (which you noted above) AND the duty to confidentiality for her patient. We must measure BOTH against the principle in the stimulus. My issue with AC D comes from the duty to confidentiality. Would it be reasonable to break the principle based on the information in the AC? I don't think it does. So what if this dude is having dreams about committing a crime? Do dreams really fulfill the requirement for OVERWHELMING evidence that not reporting would create disastrous effects? I might dream about shoplifting a frozen yogurt store (love that fro-yo), but does that mean someone should report me to the police because I am a danger to all fro-yo stores in my community? Nah, I don't think so.

AC A is really good. A teacher gives a kid a bad grade in a class that they deserve. Yay! Go teach! We know that this grade MIGHT impact their internship, but we do not have overwhelming evidence that it would, in fact, hurt the student in getting the internship. This is weak enough to back up the teacher in applying the principle.

Yeah, good point. I think they slipped "serious" into AC D to make it more attractive and kept it out of AC E to make it more subtle. However, you can safely eliminate AC A - D for not addressing the paradox in the stimulus. The closest one is AC D, but all it tells us is "Check out this proportional increase in infections to population increase!" It doesn't tell us why people are living longer with better overall health yet we have this SIGNIFICANT increase in infections.

AC E addresses this perfectly. It tells us, "Oh? There was this big jump in infections? Here's a reason why! These modern treatments we are using to keep people alive open them up to the possibility of infection. Whoops!" If we are helping so many people stay alive through these new treatments, they are now susceptible to infections which gives us an explanation as to why there is a big spike in them.

They were tricky with their omission of "serious" in AC E, but keeping a focus on the content and looking for an explanation to the paradox would help guide you to AC E.

Hey there! Let me take a crack at it and see if it helps. Feel free to follow up!

AC A basically says "Look, we should be focusing on diets here. Look at these countries, they eat different foods!" My thought is, "So what? Who cares if they eat different foods?" This helps to explain the difference in fat intake across countries, but how does that weaken the support and conclusion that says that by eating less fat, we can have less risk of cancer? I need something to show that either fat intake doesn't have the causal effect that it claims it does or there should be an alternate cause. This AC just tells me why fat intake is different and doesn't offer a weakener.

C C doesn’t really affect the support of the argument. It is saying “Hey look! Cancer is a pretty big deal in these countries with low fat intake!” Okay, but how does that weaken the support of the argument? The argument is saying the amount of fat intake you have puts you are higher or lower risk for cancer. So what if the countries with low fat intake have cancer as one of the major causes of death? It could be true that it is still less prominent than countries with high fat intake. This wouldn’t weaken it.

AC D is great because it introduces another possible cause to make us questions “Does fat intake REALLY have the causal effect that the argument thinks it does?” It tells us, “Hey, so there’s this thing about high fat intake countries…they got this pollution problem and that could be causing the higher risk of cancer…not the fat intake.” Perfect!

Hey! So the stimulus is basically making a correlation to causation error. The premises say that average fat intake is correlated to risk of cancer. The problem is the conclusion then goes too far in saying that your fat intake is what causes the higher/lower risk of cancer. We want to look for something to weaken the argument, so something that exploits this gap would be perfect.

AC C doesn't really affect the support of the argument. It is saying "Hey look! Cancer is a pretty big deal in these countries with low fat intake!" Okay, but how does that weaken the support of the argument? The argument is saying the amount of fat intake you have puts you are higher or lower risk for cancer. So what if the countries with low fat intake have cancer as one of the major causes of death? It could be true that it is still less prominent than countries with high fat intake. This wouldn't weaken it.

AC D is great because it introduces another possible cause to make us questions "Does fat intake REALLY have the causal effect that the argument thinks it does?" It tells us, "Hey, so there's this thing about high fat intake countries...they got this pollution problem and that could be causing the higher risk of cancer...not the fat intake." Perfect!

I hope that helps.

Sounds like a cool idea. I'm interested.

Hello! I would love to join. I must admit that I am still finishing up the CC and got a 155 on the only PT I've taken to date. Not sure if you think I would be a great fit for the group, but let me know if I can join

seanrowlandm@seanrowlandm883.com

I would be happy to join, too. I live in Chicago and am CST.

Also interested. Are you looking for more people? I am CST, but open to joining.

Hey! I am about 50% through the CC and am looking for a study group/study buddy to keep me on track. I work a FT job, but study in the evenings and weekends. I would be open to meeting then and also texting whenever.

Email: seanrowlandm@seanrowlandm883.com

Agreed! Let me know if a group is set up! I haven't made it to the LG in the CC yet, but almost through LR.