I was able to narrow down to (D) and (E) and I chose (D) instead. Here is my attempt to explain why (D) is wrong and (E) is correct:

Stim Breakdown

2 scenarios when there is a scandal before election:

1. Voters blame both parties equally → all incumbents win

2. Voters blame one party → incumbents from that party lose 

AC Breakdown

(A) - it’s crucial to understand which party / parties the incumbents are from. If they are both from the same party, then they will not be re-elected. However, if they are from opposite parties, then they might be re-elected.

Additionally, not sure if blaming incumbents = blaming parties they are from

(B) - irrelevant - we don’t care about the accuracy of judgment

(C) - anti-supported; when all parties are equally to blame, all the incumbents are re-elected

(D) - In the stim, it says parties are to be blamed; however, (D) says incumbents are to be blamed (different concepts here, just like (A))

Additionally, what do we mean by "depends on challengers" - are we saying that depends on which opposition parties the challengers are from? If so, that's not true.

(E) - it fits scenario (2). However, when all parties are to be blamed, then all parties will be equally penalized, which means that no party has extra advantage over the other parties

Stim Breakdown:

Dr. T and Dr. R had different interpretations of footprints

• Dr. T: footprints have human characteristics → hominid footprints

• Dr. R: if hominid → unexpected cross-stepping manner

  • Dr. R’s conclusion: not hominid (contrapositive)

AC Breakdown

(A) - Dr. T and Dr. R value different things when looking at evidence:

• Dr. T values how similar the footprint to humans

• Dr. R values how dissimilar the walking manner to humans

(B) - Wrong; Dr. R doesn’t think that early hominid footprints are the same as other footprints

(C) - Wrong; both Drs are using footprints to determine the gait of the creature

(D) - Wrong; both Drs draw conclusions based on evidence from one site.

(E) - Wrong; there’s no mention of walking upright by either Dr.

This is where craft union was mentioned in the passage:

"although craft unionism increases the differential between the wages of White workers and Black workers due to the traditional exclusion of minority workers from unions in the craft sectors of the labor market, strong positive wage gains are made by Black workers within industrial unions."

Parse:

(1) Wage difference between white worker and black workers increased because of craft union

(2) Minority workers (e.g., black workers) were not a part of the craft union

AC Breakdown:

(A) - supported: craft union increased white workers' wages in relation to non craft union workers' (aka black workers') wages

(B) - we don't know anything about # of minority workers joining in craft union

(C) - we don't have the comparison on how fast wages were rising between craft union and industrial union

(D) - not supported / kind of anti-supported? we know that right-to-work laws hurt union power in general, but the passage didn't distinguish the impact between craft unions and industrial unions

(E) - not supported - we know that labor shortage will drive up wages, but we don't know if the increase is higher for craft unions vs. industrial unions

(I was choosing between A and E)

Passage Summary:

(This question pertains to the last paragraph)

• (1) Photography prepared audience for new styles of paintings

• (2) Impressionist artists incorporated new elements (e.g., movements) inspired by photography in their paintings

• (3) photography freed painters to explore --> rise of abstract arts

AC Breakdown:

(A) - "other subject matter" was never mentioned in the passage

(B) - this is mashing (2) and (3) together; these are 2 independent points

(C) - "exclusively" - too strong / not supported

(D) - similar to (B); mashing (2) and (3) together

(E) - paraphrase of (3)

I think the key to answer the question is to clarify different POVs.

R's conclusion:

(1) bankers and merchants held the real wealth

(2) wealth /= power

R's support:

(1) based on probate records, bankers and merchants owned more fortune

(2) wealthy people were unknown --> not powerful

Author's conclusion:

Not sure if R is right / weakens R's conclusions

Author's support:

(1) a lot of questions regarding how probate valuations were applied / potential biases in probate valuations

This question is about strengthening R's conclusions.

AC Breakdown:

(A) - many merchant elites held little real properties (e.g., mills). This AC could potentially weakens R's conclusion, because we don't know how much these real properties were actually worth. If they were worth a lot, then these commercial / merchant elites might not be as wealthy as R thinks.

(B) - irrelevant. We care about who were the actually rich people, not who were the targets

(C) - weakens R's conclusion. This substantiates author's point

(D) - this essentially attacks author's support, which indirectly strengthens R's conclusion (because the author's point is to weaken R's conclusions)

• One of the questions the author raised was real properties were not accounted for, so maybe in reality, people who held mills (aka the textile mfgs) were the actual billionaires

• (D) essentially disapproves that point, that real properties actually weren't worth that much

(E) - this is an AC that mashes R's two conclusions. For governing elites, R's conclusion is about wealth has nothing to do with becoming one. Therefore, (E) doesn't strength.

I used POE for this one. I wasn't sure if A is the right AC, but I was sure the other ones are 100% wrong.

AC Breakdown:

(A) - supported. The value conventions for goods for sales were different than those for cash, for example

(B) - anti-supported. In the last paragraph, Rubinstein found that income tax return analysis revealed similar findings to the analysis from the probate records

(C) - not supported. We don't know the probate valuation differences between tobacco goods and alcohol goods

(D) - not supported / most likely anti-supported

• Probate valuations of goods for sales were lower than the actual market values; whereas probate valuations of cash / bank balances were at face value --> valuations of people who held goods were most likely undervalued

• we don't know the average probate valuations of people who held goods vs. cash

(E) - not supported - the probate valuation of a mill would not change based on the ownership

Despite this being a 3 star question, I actually found it quite challenging :( Here is my attempt to explain why A is correct.

Summary:

Theory of Exhaustion

• Definition:

  Trademark owners relinquish all rights once the products are sold

• Gray marketing allowed:

  Trademark owners cease to have rights once the products are sold to distributors

Theory of Territoriality

• Definition:

  Trademark is effective in countries registered

• Gray marketing not allowed:

  Trademark owners can stop gray marketing in registered countries

AC Breakdown:

(A): 

Theory of Exhaustion: trademark owners would have relinquished this right already, since the products have been sold to distributors

Theory of Territoriality: trademark owners have the right to stop gray marketing, since the scope is in countries in which the trademarks are registered

(B): Both theories would still confer the rights to trademark owners, since this is the stage before the products are sold

(C): Neither theory supports this right

Theory of Exhaustion: the products have been sold already

Theory of Territoriality: this occurs outside of the countries registered, therefore out of scope

(D) and (E): irrelevant; customers and usefulness of trademarks are not mentioned in either theory

I got this question through POE. However, when I initially read A, I thought it was a repeat of the premise, and I flagged this question. Here is my take on why A is correct:

Concl:

/Li → /coolest brown dwarf

Coolest brown dwarf → Li

(A) Breakdown:

Negate A: some of the coolest brown dwarfs has been hot enough to destroy Li → destroy the argument

Why A is not a repeat of the premise?

It could be that when the coolest brown dwarfs were initially formed, they were hot enough to burn all the Li, but not anymore. (A) is saying that this is NOT the case.

Hi J.Y. - this is such a good idea to build a community. Thank you!

Clarifying question: does the lottery only limit to posting under the general discussion forum, or it can be a post discussing a specific PT question?

Premise:

• Microwave popcorn consists of 50+% sales / revenue of overall microwave food products

• Microwave popcorn can be cooked in 3 minutes

Inference:

Microwave food that takes 3 minutes or less consists of at least 50% sales / revenue of overall microwave food product

(Hence D is correct)

I've watched the explanation video and read this discussion threads multiple times and I still didn't understand why (C) weakens :( However, after working with a tutor, I came up with the following explanation and hopefully it helps!

Stim Breakdown:

Prem:

• OPV (other people's point of view):

  (1) dioxin causes fish to have abnormalities

• APV (author's point of view):

  (1) Mill shutdown → no additional dioxin is being released

  (2) Dioxin decomposes slowly → assuming dioxin still exists in the water

  (3) Fish hormone recovers during mill shutdown

Concl:

• APV: dioxin is not the cause 

  (Dioxin still exists in the water even during mill shutdown, and fish hormone recovers → dioxin cannot be the reason that causes hormone change in fish)

Why C weakens:

• It challenges the assumption that dioxin exists in the water during mill shutdown.

• Since the water carries dioxin down the stream in a few hours, so during mill shutdown, fish directly downstream of the mill are not being exposed to dioxin anymore.

The flaw here is that the author assumes decreasing market share means decrease overall business volume. (B) and (D) both touch upon this flaw.

(B) - this is challenging the notion that increasing market share doesn't mean that the overall business volume is going up - match our flaw

(D) - it's too strong and descriptively inaccurate

Market share doesn't need to precisely proportionate to the amount of advertising.

In addition, it's not proportionate to the amount of advertising; it should be proportionate to the overall business volume

(I was between A and C)

Stim Breakdown / TLDR:

Prem: 

(1) Ti found in the ink of Gutenberg bible and B-36, but not others

(2) Ti found in the ink of Map

Concl:

(1) B-36 was likely to be printed by Gutenberg

(2) Map was likely from the 15th century

AC Breakdown:

(A) -

Assumption of concl (1):

Ti must’ve been rare because if it was widely available, then why would we associate B-36 to Gutenberg Bible? 

Assumption of concl (2):

This would assume that the ink was widely available / not just Gutenberg who had the ink

The assumptions are contradicting each other.

(C) - descriptively inaccurate: date and location - it was never mentioned in the stim

(Uh this one is evil)

Stim Breakdown / TLDR:

Prem:

(1) Arnold was forced to take the next flight because his original flight was overbooked --> missed his meeting

(2) If Arnold was on the original flight, the flight was canceled due to bad weather --> would've missed his meeting

Concl:

Jamie thinks airline is NOT morally obligated to compensate Arnold

Question:

Airline IS morally obligated to compensate ........

(Notice that this question stem requires us to do contrapositive in order to match Jamie's principles, so we can quickly eliminate A, D, E. We keep B and C because of "only if".)

AC Breakdown:

(B) - only if there's a reason that a passenger is forced to take a later flight except flight being canceled due to weather

In order for this to be the correct answer, we need to make sure that there's no reason that a passenger is forced to take a later flight except bad weather (contrapositive).

However, that's not the case, because Arnold was forced to take a later flight due to overbooking.

(C) - this AC is convoluted :(

[rephrase in my own word]: even if the airline didn't overbook the original flight, the passenger would NOT have been forced to take a later flight

Negate:

even if the airline didn't overbook the original flight, the passenger would have been forced to take a later flight. --> this is true because the original flight was canceled, so Arnold would need to be on a later flight.

Hope the explanation helps!

I was between (A) and (B) for this question.

(A) - This is pointing out that the surgeries might not be needed for purebred dogs. Therefore, the reason to choose nonpurebred dog weakens.

Potential counter point: 

(A) says “most abnormalities”. Doesn’t it mean that some abnormalities will require surgeries and therefore support the conclusion?

Answer:

This is a weaken question - the goal here is not to completely refute the conclusion, but to raise doubts about the conclusion.

(B) - Even though both purebred and nonpurebred dogs can incur medical costs due to nongenetically determined diseases, purebred dogs would still have a higher chance of incurring medical costs - therefore doesn’t weaken

I was between (A) and (B) for this Q.

(A) - even if the new planes have seats that restrict access to emergency exits, airlines could simply dismantle them - doesn't not strengthen

(B) - this strengthens because not only we decrease fatality rates by allowing people to access emergency exits, but also reduce the # of collisions themselves

I didn’t understand the question initially. I thought the question is asking why the government needs the help from the fishing industry to count the dead seabirds. Instead, it is actually asking why the government program wouldn’t work / find the AC that weakens the arg.

Stim Breakdown:

Prem:

(1) Govt can't accurately count # of killed seabirds by net fishing - no incentives from fishing industry to do so

(2) fishing industry cares about toxins in the fish they caught

Concl:

Govt should implement the program that examines toxins in dead birds to count seabirds killed by net fishing

AC Breakdown:

(A) - This indicates that one kind of fish can be contaminated by different toxins. The fishing industry has incentives to turn in the dead seabirds to understand if their fish are impacted.

(B) - This weakens the efficacy of the program because “only a few seabirds” are needed - less incentives for them to turn in all the dead seabirds

(C) - This is irrelevant - it doesn’t address why the program might not work

(D) - This strengthens the argument - this is the reason why the program might work

(E) - This strengthens the argument - it gives additional incentives for fishing industry to turn in dead seabirds

I got this wrong :( but i think (D) is correct because even though the population was compensated, a lot of it were babies, and they wouldn't be able to participate in labor forces

I got this Q wrong but this is my attempt to explain the ACs.

Prem / TLDR:

(1) Ms. T seems to have legit args on why she deserved a raise

(2) However, raising her salary would threaten the integrity of reward system

Concl:

Her request should be denied

Stim Logic:

Because of a neg consequence, we shouldn't do x

Flaw:

Have we holistically considered the consequence of doing vs. not doing x? what's the drawback of not doing x?

AC Breakdown:

(A) - does this imply that if the complaint can be handled unofficially, the request is approved?

(B) - descriptively inaccurate - the author never once tried to undermine the persuasiveness of Ms. T's evidence; to the contrary, he acknowledged that Ms. T's evidence was compelling

(C) - similar to (B) - the director acknowledged that Ms. T's evidence was compelling based on Ms. T's superior performance

(D) - the director didn't ignore this possibility - he acknowledged that Ms. T's performance is better than her peers and her complaint seemed to be justified

(E) - this matches our flaw - the director didn't think through holistically the effects of denying Ms. T's claims. what if there will be a higher employee attrition rate?

This is my approach:

prem

(1) can't send spacecraft soon

(2) capable of communicating --> intelligent

concl

/[intelligent] --> /[determine]

(kick up "if there are sentient beings outside of solar system)

Approach

Step 1: Contrapositive prem (2) - since conclusion has /[intelligent]

/[intelligent] ---> /[capable of communicating]

Step 2: Identify gap:

/[capable of communicating] --> /[determine]

Step 3: Look for AC:

(A) - not relevant to our gap

(B) - this is talking about "want to communicate", but our gap is about "capable of communicating"

(C) - we already know that we can't send a spacecraft soon... not sure why we need a conditional for it

(D) - /[capable] --> (determine --> spacecraft)

combining with prem (1): we know we can't use spacecraft, so we can't determine their existence

(E) - intelligent --> capable of communicating

this is sufficiency-necessity confusion of prem (2)

AC Breakdown:

(A) - MC never mentioned about women being property owners

(B) - correct

MC: "Since no reasoning could justify the perpetuation of any inequality, he argued, this intellectually untenable situation of women's inequality was historically condemned to disappear soon."

OG: "...exposed harmful inconsistencies in the period's revolutionary universalism"

(C) - MC's argument was theoretical and didn't mention any legislative approaches

"Where Condorcet's arguments were purely theoretical and did not include specific legislative proposals..."

(D) - OG would disagree with this - she believed women's rights needed to be addressed specifically through political actions

(E) - neither of them mentioned governmental power

"She argued that the prevailing political inequality kept women at a disadvantage in all their dealings with men, including marriage, and that this ubiquitous disadvantage would continue until women were granted full political rights, equal access to property, and public employment."

Based on the above sentence, we can infer that political equality is the requirement for marriage.

(A) (B) (C) and (E) are not supported from the passage

OG's view: women's rights should be acquired through political movement

AC Breakdown

(A) - descriptively incorrect - it's not against men not willing to engage in reasonable discussion.... it's against political inequality women were facing

(B) - descriptively incorrect - it's not "women and all others" - OG's POV was very women-focused

(C) - this is correct.

Support:

"She argued that the prevailing political inequality kept women at a disadvantage in all their dealings with men, including marriage" (marriage could be referred as private spheres)

"women were granted full political rights, equal access to property, and public employment" (public employment could be referred as public spheres)

(D) - OG never mentioned about key allies from men

(E) - she didn't believe that women's rights would be realized thru revolution

"...exposed harmful inconsistencies in the period's revolutionary universalism, noting that after the Revolution women's political rights were still limited"

Low-res:

P1 - intro to 2 args on women's rights:

MC - est thru universal equal rights

OG - need political actions

P2 - Deep dive into MC's point of view

P3 - Deep dive into OG's view and contrast that to MC's

Main Point - introducing 2 different views on women's rights

AC Breakdown

(A) - "not easy for most members to evaluate" - not supported anywhere

(B) - the passage never mentions the views were thought initially to be radically opposed

(C) - this is not the main point... wrong focus

(D) - match the main point

(E) - descriptively inaccurate - neither OG nor MC believed those things

Stim / TLDR:

prem:

Consumers primarily care about reliability, and yet, some of the most reliable cars do not sell well. Why?

AC Breakdown:

(A) - this is just restating the prem. now we know that the consumers care more about reliability than FE, but that doesn't explain why reliable car sales are not great

(B) - this potentially can be the reason why. consumers think that car A is reliable based on its reputation, but in fact, car B is the most reliable type.

(C) - the scope of the prem is "consumers shopping for automobiles". This AC is talking about some people who have cars already

(D) - irrelevant - are these models reliable or not? we don't know

(E) - irrelevant - no one is saying that the consumers are buying the most stylish automobiles