24. Incorrect confident

Why am I reviewing this question? Confidently chose D twice.

Task: What was a consequence of the absence of limitation on the legal power of English/French monarchs in the 17/18th cent?

From the passage: They could make or unmake any law. They could disregard any law. Creditors demanded higher interest rates from monarchs.

A - Difficult for unrestricted monarchs to finance the expansion of their empires.

Because they had unlimited power, they were charged high interest rates. Even if they had absolute power within their borders, monarchs could still encounter difficulty convincing a bank to lend money.

Key inference A asks us to make: Not only will lenders raise interest rates (explicitly stated) on omnipotent monarchs but may limit or refuse to lend to them at all. As the passage says, when Parliament took over the English Crown’s purse, “borrowing increased and increased rates fell”. From this, we can infer that before when English monarchs were unrestricted, creditors limited lending.

D - Monarchs borrowed more money when unrestricted than when they were restricted.

Tricky because it seems common sense an all-powerful monarch could borrow as much as they like. But based on the passage, there’s support suggesting the otherwise.

AC comparative statement -- monarchs in the 17/18th cent unrestricted vs restricted.

When monarchs were unrestricted, creditors would not “voluntarily lend… at favorable terms” and charged higher interest rates. While it’s not explicit how much monarchs could borrow, it can be inferred that it was more difficult to borrow while unrestricted.

After the Glorious Revolution when the English monarchs were restricted, they had a “newfound ability to borrow” and “borrowing increased and increased rates fell”. So the monarchs were able to borrow more after their power was restricted.

I had a really hard time with this question and realized it was how I was translating "nothing but". “P is nothing but RSS” means the only thing P does is RSS. P = RSS and nothing else (same thing as saying 2+2=4, it can’t be some other value).

Formal logic:

P → /E

P = RSS* critical translation!

E → /RSS and A

“HE” –m→ P

P = propaganda

E = education

HE = health education

RSS = repetition of simple slogans

A = all info in its complexity

B - “HE” → /A → /E

But that doesn’t mean “HE” is P. The relationship between P → /E, so /E doesn’t tell us anything (necessary fulfilled, sufficient falls away). It’s not enough to show that HE → /E, we need to show that HE → P.

D - “HE” –m→ RSS = P

Okay then “HE” –m→ P

Wow this one was challenging.

P1

Low res: 3 narrative strands, Nisa (woman) and ethnographer

High res: Shostak’s work is different and uses 3 narrative strands: 1) autobiography on Nisa, 2) Nisa’s role as a woman and greater implications, 3) encounter between Shostak and Nisa.

Purpose: To introduce Shostak’s work. Most likely will discuss each narrative strand further.

P2

Low res: Challenge/correct assumptions about “simple” societies

High res: Shostak’s work confirms and challenges assumptions about “simple” societies through Nisa’s experience as a Kung woman, something Westerners generally tend to idealize. List of Nisa’s difficult experiences.

Purpose: To discuss how Shostak’s work plays off Leiris’ and challenges beliefs. Likely connects back to narrative strand #1.

P3

Low res: Scope broaden

High res: Nisa’s experience is a metaphor for women’s experience in general. It calls attention to the dearth of women’s perspective on women in the field of ethnography.

Purpose: To broaden scope of discussion from Nisa’s experience as a Kung woman to women in general. Likely connects back to narrative strand #2.

P4

Low res: Encounter; narrative taking “shape”

High res: Shostak and Nisa’s narratives are interwoven. Uhm.

Purpose: Likely connects back to narrative strand #3.

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MP: Shostak’s piece on Nisa uses three narrative strands to shed light on more than just Nisa’s own life.

Purpose: To explain and interpret Shostak’s work.

Tone: Descriptive, appreciative.

Viewpoints: Author mostly, some Shostak and Nisa

#help How do you all approach RC Inference type questions (#7)? I'm trying to nail down a process and would appreciate any tips

My current approach:

1. Read the question stem twice and highlight key parts.

2. Review ACs without referring back to the passage.

3. If the AC doesn’t ring a bell, skip but don’t eliminate.

4. If there are a couple ACs remaining, THEN refer to the text.

The subtly of A really got me and I had a hard time explaining it to myself.

A - Neg: Ease of catching trout doesn’t change much with time of year and water temp. It’s the same.

Neg is consistent with the argument. The ease of catching trout doesn’t matter; the location of the trout does. The ease of catching trout could be the same as long as anglers look in the right parts/depths of the lake.

My mistake: I chose this AC because I thought the neg also implies that location/depth of trout doesn’t matter.

Why did I think this? I’m translating AC’s “ease with which lake trout can be caught” to the conclusion’s “eschew… and fish instead…”. I thought if it’s easy to catch lake trout, that must be where they are found. So, based on the neg, I thought if “ease” of catching them doesn’t change based on water temp, then it also doesn’t change based on depth, so why should anglers focus on shallow areas?

Why is this wrong? I’m going counter to the argument’s premise that trout → coldest water. Coldest water is relative to the season and rest of the lake. The coldest water in the summer may be warmer than the coldest water in the winter. What matters is that the trout will be in the coldest water at each season.

E - Neg: In lakes that are partially iced over in late-winter, “turnover” has already happened.

Neg means that the temperature distribution has changed and the coldest water is no longer at the top of the lake which means trout are no longer there. Argument falls apart.

Why did I not choose E? I’m not sure honestly.

A - Being opposed to higher taxes is not a factor contributing to good leadership.

Trans: Being opposed to higher taxes is irrelevant to whether you’ll be a good leader.

Argument falls apart.

B - Being opposed to higher taxes is not a sufficient condition for good leadership.

Trans: Being opposed to higher taxes can’t 100% guarantee you’ll be a good leader.

“Good leader” vs “better leader” term shift.

My mistake: Didn’t have a good prephrase before going to the ACs. Felt like I wasted time staring at ACs while not sure what to match it to. I misread “the competition” to mean the institution of the race rather than the actual competitors. Don’t have a good process to approach.

Prephrase: We WILL NOT win. We haven’t been winning. We haven't been doing X. The other competitors have been doing X.

B - Not sure how to map the race back to a fair coin toss. Unlike a coin flip, there’s ways to improve chances of winning. Argument says that not only have we not been winning, we haven't been doing anything to increase our chances of winning.

D - Map back: Recent winners have always been X. Therefore, the winner will be X.

Seems pretty similar. Since competitors have been doing X (changing to viewers’ taste and getting new hosts), we can assume that the winner has been doing X.

I don’t like how strong “have always been” and “will be” are.

E - Map back: Only X are winners. The next winner will be X.

But I don’t think the author’s X (changing to viewers’ taste and getting new hosts) is a requirement to be a winner.

Remember the ACs are not my friends; they are trying to trick me.

B - Neg: Mussels contain other contaminants other than sand.

If this is the case… what kind of contaminants? Do they get cleaned out by cornmeal as well?

E - Neg: The mussels the chef is using are NOT from a seafood market.

If this is the case… why are you supporting your argument using seafood market mussels? Your mussels could have sand in them for all we know.

My mistake: I thought “chef” referred to the person who made the recipe, not the argument’s author. I could have caught this if I had slowed down my reading of the stim.

Oh wow. I solved for the wrong task. I approached the question like MSS/MBT. facepalm

#help As a hypothetical, what if the B read “The moth is not fast/agile enough to escape from SOME potential predators”? The neg would read “The moth is fast/agile enough to escape from ALL potential predators”. Would that destroy be a NA?

Thanks @ @ and @ for the comments! The PowerScore resources were great, highly recommend the second RC skill test podcast for others who are trying to diagnose their problem areas.

I agree with you all that "why" is the base question for main purpose questions. I now see that when just asking "why" I tend to get confused and fail to decouple main purpose from author's attitude. This probably works fine for others but since this is a where I stumble, I think I'll modify my approach. Still open to feedback!

Main point: WHAT is the conclusion of this passage?

Main purpose: WHAT is the author/passage trying to do? (to compare, to educate, to persuade, etc) - basically steer clear of asking "why" to avoid confusion

Author's attitude: HOW does the author feel about this topic? (neutral, optimistic, skeptical, etc)

#help I'm struggling with how to identify when an AC is considered too broad. In #6, A is eliminated because "contemporary Chinese art" is considered too broad (contemporary is debatable as well). In #8, B is correct although it uses "Chinese art" which I felt was similarly broad. The rest of the AC is great though. Any advice?

Thanks for sharing, exactly what I'm trying to drill and reduce scoring variance on at the moment.

17. MP. My reasoning for elim B is really different from JY's, Manhattan Prep, etc.

B - Planck didn’t correct the classical wave theory. He created a whole new hypo that broke from classical wave theory. I feel like these are two very different things in context (discrete vs continuous energy).

Not a grammar master, but something seems off with the video's reading of B. The answer choice boils down to: "Classical wave theory was correct by Planck and X performed experiments that did Y." The exp video says that it should be read as"(Planck and other physicists) performed experiments". But if I ignore the X part for a sec, then the sentence reads "Classical wave theory was corrected by Planck performed experiments". Super weird?? Like the sentence doesn't flow at all. So I don't see how the original sentence is saying that Planck performed experiments, just based on grammatical structure alone. I feel like I have no choice but to read it as two independent sentences joined by the "and". I get people's argument that there should be an Oxford comma before the "and", but honestly Oxford commas' use in such cases is getting pretty voluntary.

No matter how I read it, B should be interpreted as "(Classical wave theory was correct by plank Planck) AND (other physicists after him performed experiments)." I realize this is turning into a rant lol but I really struggled trying to get on board with explanations for this AC.

D - Factually correct and MP.

Eliminated under time because I didn't recall that Planck did experiments. My mistake was not connecting "experimental results" to the blackbody study that broke the classical theory. This is what prompted Planck's hypo.

E - Similar to B, Planck didn’t modify classical wave theory.

I tried doing a Speed Test on this passage and confirmed that I definitely need more than 2:30 to grasp the passage's big ideas.

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P1

Low res: Communist realism art / “truth”

High res: The Cultural Revolution encouraged “realism art” that depicted the idealistic “truth” that the political party wanted to portray.

Purpose: Provide social CTX on Revolutionary Art

P2

Low res: Scar Art; harsh realities

High res: Scar Art was one of the reactionary movements after the Revolution. Artists depicted the harsh realities of rural life poverty that they experienced.

Purpose: Describe one reaction/consequence to P1

P3

Low res: Native Soil; idealize peasant/rural life

High res: Native Soil was another reactionary movement. Artists idealized peasant/rural life rather than focus on the harsh realities.

Purpose: Describe another reaction/consequence to P1

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MP: Scar Art and Native Art were two separate reactionary movements to the rigidity of Revolutionary “Realism” art.

Purpose: Describe two consequences.

Tone: Largely neutral and descriptive.

Viewpoints: Some of author’s viewpoint discussing the downfall of each reactionary art movement

Cookie cutter: Social CTX → MP → related consequences

P1

Purpose: Discrepancy about canon lawyer associations (CTX)

Low res: Canon lawyer assoc

High res: 14th century canon lawyer associations (church courts) didn’t actually dole out disciplinary action.

P2

Purpose: Two possible Hypos for why

Low res: Possible explanations

High res: 1) Lawyers were so ethical that there was no need to enforce. 2) Standards were so loose that no one bothered to enforce them.

P3

Purpose: Support for Hypo #2 (from author)

Low res: English civil law comparison

High res: In comparison, English civil law courts (a comparable group) had lots of disciplinary actions. Oh and it’s not reasonable to say that canon lawyers were less likely to slip up. No.

P4

Purpose: Support for Hypo #2

Low res: Evidence of complaints

High res: Church itself complained about unethical behavior. Examples in Basel and England.

P5

Purpose: Result/consequences

Low res: Paradoxical result

High res: The criticism may have led canon lawyers to advocate for themselves lol.

--

MP: Evidence suggests that medieval canon lawyer associations were inefficient/poor at enforcing their own professional standards.

Tone: Persuasive

Viewpoints: Author

Cookie cutter: Support one Hypo

A got me but I see how it really cannot work for MBT.

A - Very reasonably inferred answer, since writing down passwords is the GREATEST threat. But the task is MBT. How would we derive what “should” be done when there were no prescriptive statements in the paragraph?

C - Very easy passwords are less of a security threat than very difficult passwords.

I thought there could be exceptions. Not everyone would write down very difficult passwords. While that's true, the last sentence of the stim reads that “Very difficult passwords… hence pose the greatest security threat of all”. That’s pretty explicit. I like @LOWERCASE EVERYTHING's explanation of how to read the last sentence of the stim.

Task: Weaken P/C relationship

Argument: Okay but you’re just telling me about bats that don’t have rabies and that the risk COULD BE low. Even if they’re shy and rarely bite, I care about bats that have rabies. One of them could still have rabies and bite me. Why shouldn’t we remove them?

B - Rabid bats are less mobile but much more aggressive.

Sure I accept that bats are shy and rarely bite (premises). But if this AC is also true, then not only are rabid bats in buildings just going to stay there, they’re more aggressive and more likely to bite me.

C - Most rabid animals are animals that very rarely bite people under normal conditions.

What are normal conditions? When the animal doesn’t have rabies? When the animal has rabies but everything else is normal? What would “everything else” be? Like is a house/building considered normal?!

Are bats part of these “most animals”?

Regardless of what happens under “normal conditions”, the point is to weaken the argument that we should remove bats from buildings. This AC is begging us to think that under NOT normal conditions, most rabid animals DO bite people. But that’s like negating the sufficient condition.

#help I'm not really following how to extract the MP that "some scientists think the Big Bang was the start of our part in something bigger". I feel like JY and various online explanations fill in a gap that I'm not seeing from the passage.

In P4, I thought the passage suggests that Carroll and Chen contradict the "initial condition" assumption by saying it's actually cold, empty space rather than a hot, dense point. But the point is actually that the hot, dense point exists in the setting of the cold, empty space. I'm having a really hard time figuring out how to draw this just from the passage. Any pointers for what I'm missing?

#help While I chose B because it was so straightforward, I'm having a really hard time eliminating A.

This is a comparative argument. Doesn’t a claim that shoe factory is better imply that court house is worse? If there’s no evidence supporting court house is better than shoe factory, then isn’t that the same as not having evidence against shoe factory? So could this be factually true?

Passage: 6:01 - way too long, could have read faster because the passage was straightforward

Questions: 4:23 for 7 questions

Total: 10:24

Target: 8:29

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P1

Low res: Faculty poaching; IP flexibility

High res: In order to prevent faculty poaching, universities need to consider different IP policies.

Purpose: CTX and problem statement / MP

P2

Low res: Chew 4 policies

High res: Chew provides 4 policy classifications.

Purpose: Outline 3/4 policies.

P3

Low res: Royalties; uni benefit

High res: The 3 policies in P2 may go against common law. Universities want to maximize their own benefit (ownership/royalties of faculty-created IP).

Purpose: Point out university issue with P2 policies

P4

Low res: Fourth policy different

High res: Fourth policy doesn’t have this issue of university overstepping royalty/ownership benefits.

Purpose: Outline final policy.

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MP: Universities need to consider different IP policies. Chew outlines 4 ways with author preference to one.

Purpose:

Tone: Mostly descriptive of Chew’s policies. Author doesn’t seem to make a strong opinion of any of them.

Viewpoints: Author, Chew

Cookie cutter: Problem statement provided and several options are discussed with one appearing to be favored.

#help Does the negation of E challenge the truth of the conclusion? Most answer choices don't do so, so I'm wondering how to handle this.

@-1 your hard work is paying off! Keep it up! I love seeing posts like yours because they encourage me to trust the process.

I'm so sorry about the loved ones you lost (3 This is not an easy time and what you're doing is incredible. Please remember to rest and reset where needed(/p)

Not an easy passage for me.

P1

Low res: CTX

High res: Aboriginal rights are inconsistently recognized/protected in Canada. Why? Because Canadian provincial courts must interpret the general constitution for specific cases.

Purpose: MP and historical CTX

P2

Low res: “indigeneous”

High res: It’s difficult to apply the vague constitution. Why? For example, for land ownership, aboriginals usually depend on oral tradition whereas courts require documentation.

Purpose: Example

Difficulty: Don’t really follow the middle part of the paragraph. Something about the constitution and older/existing rights places today’s aboriginals at a disadvantage.

P3

Low res: Land “ownership”

High res: It’s also difficult to interpret “ownership”. Why? For example, a provincial court was too conservative in their interpretation.

Purpose: Example

Difficulty: Again, don’t really follow the middle part.

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MP: The constitution reforms actually can hurt protection of aboriginal rights (vague language and burden on provincial courts).

Purpose: To discuss the issues of a particular situation.

Tone: Disapproval

Viewpoints: Author

Cookie cutter: Negative consequences

P1

Low res: CTX cooperating witnesses

High res:

→Conclusion: Courts often rely on cooperating witnesses.

→Premise: Why? Because cooperating witnesses apparently share info on conversations and confessions with the accused.

Purpose: To provide CTX (cooperating witnesses and evidence).

P2

Low res: False testimony

High res:

→Conclusion: Cooperating witnesses can give false testimony.

→Premise: Why? Because they get incentive to cooperate and have no consequences for lying.

Purpose: To discuss a problem of bartered testimony.

P3

Low res: OPA; protection fail for the accused

High res:

→Conclusion: Even if there’s protection for the accused against false testimony, they can actually fail.

→Premise: Why? Because cooperating witnesses can provide “unofficial” testimony, not subject to the usual safeguards for the accused.

Purpose: To discuss OPA against P2 but author disagrees and thinks it's still a problem.

P4

Low res: Juror

High res:

Conclusion: Jurors don’t realize how cooperating witnesses’ can be influenced by incentives and can lie.

Premise: Why? Because studies show jurors give too much weight to confessions and similarly witness testimonies.

Purpose: To provide another premise supporting that it’s still a problem.

P5

Low res: Why; internal factors

High res:

→Conclusion: Studies show jurors do so because they may focus on “internal factors”.

→Premise: Why? Because they think cooperating witnesses testify to atone for their own mistakes rather than for external incentives (again, similar to defendant confessions).

Purpose: To explain why P4 happens.

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MP: Despite safeguards, using cooperating witness testimony as evidence is actually problematic.

Purpose: To describe and explain the complications.

Tone: Cautious, concerned

Viewpoints: Author, research/studies?

Cookie cutter: Context on a problem is provided → problem #1 → purported remedy but problem #1 remains → problem #2 and explanation for it