My thought process that eventually made me feel comfortable in picking E:

E: "public figures (some public figure X) can have good rep only if there are other public figures who have bad rep"

paraphrase: X can have good rep only if there are other public figures (besides X) who have bad rep

Contrapositive: if there are NO other public figures (besides X) who have bad rep (i.e. all public figures besides X have good rep), then X cannot have good rep

*key subject distinction: public figure X vs. all (public figures) besides X.

[otherwise, there's a great risk one might interpret E as this:

PF can have GR --> other PF with ~GR

no other PF with ~GR (if the understanding of "other" is improper, it's going to sound like "no PF with ~GR, i.e. all PF are with GR") --> no PF can have GR

but then "all PF can have GR --> no PF can have GR" is obviously self-contradictory

But this is not what E is saying]

- If there's 100 PF, X=1 and all besides=99; X=2 and all besides=98; etc.

- this "concept" of X can be applied to each and every public figure out there. So if something gets us "X cannot have good rep" it would also be applied to each and every pf out there. Hence it's equivalent in saying "each and every (ALL) pf cannot have good rep"

Stim:

libel --> using false statements to damage someone's rep

Strong Libel Laws --> (invoke fear of lawsuit) --> no one will say anything bad about PF

_____________________________________________________________________

SLL --> no one in public eye (PF) can have GR

Assumption gap:

no one will say anything bad about PF --> no PF can have GR

contrapositive: if any PF can have GR --> someone will be able to say something bad about PF = libel is allowed and [some other] PF have ~GR (i.e. BR) because of libel

this contrapositive is roughly what E is about

i feel like i'm in the same boat haha; from personal experience i'd say take a break from the big stressors like timed sections/drills etc, but don't take a break from the lsat altogether unless you feel genuinely fried (say, for example, being unable to identify support and conclusion for most LR stims you come across). Prioritizing review has helped me the most in moments like this

@LiaWang appreciate it! I thought of it in the following way and reached the same conclusion as you did:

what would make the argument collapse: we should always prioritize ER over own country's interests

[we should always jeopardize the interests of our people to punish a protectionist country]

- negated (what's necessary for this argument): we should sometimes not prioritize ER over own country's interests

[we should sometimes not/not always jeopardize the interests of our people to punish a protectionist country]

* ~(sometimes not) = always do

[ ~(some A are not B) = all A are B] [~(all A are B) = some A are not B]

I was wondering if there's a way to modify C to make it correct