I'm confused why so many people fell for answer choice C, and that makes me think there's something about the stimulus that I'm missing... and perhaps I got this question right by luck.

All we know about temperate regions is that they have low levels of PAH, just like the Persian Gulf area did post-war. I think JY gets it wrong when he labels the Baltic area as "high PAH" and post-war Persian Gulf as "low PAH." If I'm understanding correctly, the stimulus doesn't say "low levels compared to the Baltic Sea" but instead says "comparable". So knowing both areas had low levels of PAH does not resolve the paradox at all. I used this reasoning to eliminate A, B, and C since comparisons between temperate and desert regions do nothing to explain the discrepancy. I then eliminated E since that only explains why oil contamination was lower than expected during the war, but does not explain why contamination was lower than pre-war levels.

Can anyone confirm if my reasoning is valid, or if there's something wrong with my justification for eliminating the 4 answer choices?

#help (Added by Admin)

A doesn't resolve the discrepancy. It's saying that of Yeung's supporters, a smaller percentage were eligible voters compared to Panitch's supporters. So let's assume a lot of Yeung's fans are under-18 or non-citizens and can't vote for him.

But does knowing that answer the paradox: Why did Yeung win even though more of the eligible voters they polled supported Panitch?

If anything, I think it makes it even more contradictory. How could Yeung win against Panitch when 1) he was less favored in the polls; and 2) he had a smaller percentage of supporters that were eligible to vote?

The question stem says "Which of the following, if true..."

So you have to take each answer choice at face value. If A says businesses will take advantage of the lower rent, you have to accept that the rent is lower. But then ask yourself, if this were true, does that help resolve the paradox? In this case, it does.

The way I see it, Hector's argument for removing the sculpture rests not on whether the public is for or against it, but whether it would benefit the public. That's the only reasoning we're given:

town sculpture → benefit

/benefit → /town sculpture

But Hector concludes:

negative public opinion → /town sculpture

So there must be some kind of bridge:

negative public opinion → /benefit → /town sculpture

AC E provides this bridge by saying that public opinion of benefits is an indicator of actual benefits (or lack thereof). When negated, Hector's conclusion falls apart because we wouldn't know whether or not there was a benefit to the public. Without that, we wouldn't know whether or not the sculpture ought to be removed.

Maybe this is an assumption that would hurt me on another question, but I figured an improvement would have to be "significant" if it would decrease the considerable loss of money and productivity. These two words are basically synonyms in my view.

I wasn't completely convinced by JY's reason for eliminating AC B and have given it some thought. I initially negated "oppose passage" as indicating most permanent residents support passage of the law. In that case, the conclusion would be weakened because permanent residents would be supporting the bill and, presumably, hoping to serve their own interests.

However, the negation of "oppose" would be "not oppose". The permanent residents could either support OR have no position whatsoever regarding the proposed laws. In which case, the negation wouldn't wreck the argument at all since those supporting could still just be summer residents serving their interests.

Same! In hindsight, I guess "current popularity" doesn't imply increased popularity. Comedians who display disrespect could have always been popular. In which case, the frequency of people who fail to live up to ideals does not matter (i.e., fails negation test).

I think one crucial part I overlooked is the statistician saying, "...contrary to accepted opinion among meteorologists..."

The statistician has already accounted for the meteorologist's rebuttal and is saying in spite of what professional meteorologists believe/are saying, there is still a correlation that must be taken into consideration. In replying by citing the beliefs of an authority figure rather than engaging with this premise & evidence, the meteorologist commits a flaw.

I chose A and I think that was 100% influenced by listening to the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial and hearing her lawyers yell, "Objection: Hearsay" a million times.

That said, it's really unclear whether the "colleague" is alluding to Ms. Chan's continued work at Quad Cities or with a different venture/company. If the former, then that would contradict the definition of a retirement. The flow of the argument from retired --> Quad Cities --> colleague --> business trips is really misleading, so I kind of want to write this off as a poorly written stimulus...

I chose C during the timed set, but I should have realized that C and A are saying very similar things. If the flaw is that the author is taking for granted that all X are Y, then they are also overlooking the possibility that some X aren't Y. I know there are some nuances in wording (like religious music vs. organ music), but I think the general takeaway stands.

The way I see it, Yolanda's conclusion that one event is more dangerous than another is based on the premise that the other event doesn't physically harm people. By Arjun saying that other event can physically hurt people, he is disputing the strength of Yolanda's premise.

I don't see that as him failing to maintain the distinction in Yolanda's argument. In fact, he recognizes that distinction but doesn't really take a position on it because he's arguing that Yolanda's support isn't completely accurate.

However, his flaw is that his argument rests on a possible "could be dangerous" premise to a definite "causes [physical harm]" conclusion.

I gotta stop picking answer choices just because I don't get what it's saying... (looking at you AC E)

Not entirely certain why E is incorrect/"conflicts" with the letter writer's view. The stimulus ends by saying Roach Ender was tested by conducting "many well-documented studies". How can we assume that means all 4000+ species?

The stimulus only says that vexone is effective against all the species. Answer choice E says "tested against" - are we to assume that the letter writer only knew the efficacy of vexone because they tested their product? Why is it not possible for them to know that vexone is effective through other means, and their studies simply corroborated that fact? Why must it be that they tested against all the species?

#help (Added by Admin)

The moment you think "...they could have lived in the Northern half...", you know it's CBT, not a MBF.

In one of the past lessons, JY talks about how truth is not the same thing as validity. Whether the argument is valid or not doesn't matter, so the fact that it makes assumptions also doesn't matter. You are asked to accept everything the stimulus says at face value.

The stimulus starts with "The southern half of a certain region of the earth..." So why can't Plesiosaurs live in a different region that is also underwater? The moment an AC becomes possible in the world of the stimulus, you know it's not a MBF.

I think you know it's exclusive because of the two possible necessary conditions. Assuming you satisfy both sufficient conditions (i.e., it's unpopular with both faculty and students), you can't both "modify" a policy AND scrap it to "adopt" a new one.

If an answer choice is just "restating a premise", then you wouldn't get anything new out of it. It would tell you what you already knew from the stimulus.

However, in this case, the correct AC does provide new information. The conclusion says that physicians are more likely to identify the cause of death as alcohol-related. Answer choice C provides an explanation supporting this statement - that they are more likely to identify the cause because they are better trained in identifying alcohol-related deaths than they were in the past.

If you're still confused about this, ask yourself "Does this AC provide new information?" and "Does this new information strengthen/weaken the argument?"

In hindsight, this question is fairly easy. However, under timed condition, I couldn't help but view this question as a resolve/reconcile (even though I knew it was a MSS question...). The stimulus ended by saying that scientists were surprised that the amount of oxygen-18 in a cloud stayed constant, despite greater proportions descending during rainfall and it raining daily in the Amazon forests. I lost a lot of time trying to figure out why that was the case when A is clearly alluded to in the second sentence.

To me, the passage seems to indicate that ubiquity is linked to efficacy (i.e., the more committees there are, the more successful the country is at reducing occupational injuries). Wouldn't it be a safe assumption then that there is a difference between mandated committees and voluntary ones simply because of the effect it has on the number of committees?

I get why A is right - just trying to figure out why B is wrong...

I don't think it matters if the students knowingly or unknowingly committed plagiarism. For all we know, Walters fully intended to commit plagiarism. But what we do need is for the Professor to believe that the student committed plagiarism unknowingly. And AC C is the only one that speaks to that.

I'll take a stab at answering your second question.

The stimulus says that gas costs twice as much in Chester than it does in Tilsen. So to make the math easy, let's say gas is $1 in Tilsen, and in Chester, it costs twice that amount (so multiply by 2 = $2).

It goes on to say if the cost of gas in Chester ever becomes more than twice that in Tilsen, then the company will move to Tilsen.

The conclusion says if the price increases at all in Chester, they will move to Tilsen. So based on the scenario above, if the price of gas in Chester ever becomes more than $2, the company will move.

But $2 is twice the price of Tilsen's gas so long as the price in Tilsen stays at $1. Imagine that Chester's price goes up to $3. BUT at the same time, Tilsen's price also went up to $2. Just because Chester's price increased doesn't mean they would have to move, because Tilsen's price also went up and the difference is no longer 2x (Chester's gas would now have to cost more than $4 to be twice that of Tilsen).

For the conclusion to be true, the price of Tilsen's gas can't increase. Think of ratio as a slider in this case - the higher that Tilsen's price increases, the greater that Chester's gas will have to cost to be twice that.

The stimulus says that the annual number of traffic fatalities has declined over the last 5 years. So to presume that the first 2 years prior to the seat-belt law indicates an increase in fatalities is both an assumption and a direct contradiction of the premise.

Even if the seat-belt law only lead to a decrease in fatalities over the last 3 years, that still offers an alternative explanation for why the decrease isn't only attributable to skilled drivers.

Interested :)

Keep in mind that an NA question is asking for something that is true if the argument is valid - not for an AC that necessarily strengthens the argument. The argument says resolutions of lenses are ultimately irrelevant because all modern lenses project really detailed images onto film. So if all modern lenses do that, advertising the resolution of a lens won't really distinguish it from a competitor's camera.

An assumption that must be true is B... that there isn't some other difference between two cameras' resolution that would give one an advantage over the other. B is ruling out the scenario in which even though the lenses all produce equally detailed images on the film, the differences in resolution would have an impact on how much of an available film's flaws matter. Because if it did do that, then the resolution would matter - thereby making the argument invalid.