The conclusion is about assessing the value of a discipline based on it's blemished origins. They then use Chemistry as an example of a discipline with blemished origins. So we can infer from this that whoever is making this argument would consider these origins when assessing the current value of Chemistry as a discipline. I didn't get what the flaw was until I saw the answer choices.

a. unblemished? what does this have to do with unblemished? It's out of scope. Additionally, "scientifically valuable" imo is different from "assessing the value". We aren't told anything about whether a discipline is valuable or not, just that blemished origins are important in assessing it.

b. yeah, if chemistry's current practices are different from it's origins, then why should we assess it's current value based on it's blemished origins? Maybe it is completely dissimilar.

c. not contradicting it's used to support

d. doesn't need to prove. It tells us that blemished origins are important for assessing value and gives us an example of why. We don't have to cover most other discipline's to make the argument that this is making.

e. no

ohhhhhhhhhhhhh

Idk if I'm simplifying this too much but here's how I understood it using lawgic:

Stimulus tells us this is a bad principle (accepting ourselves) if the goal of society is to be genuinely happy. So if we want to be genuinely happy, we should not accept ourselves as we are (because accepting is a bad principle), so (GH → /ACCEPT). Then we get our premise, which tells us that if you are not pursuing excellence, you will not be genuinely happy. Negate that in lawgic to get GH on the sufficient condition side of both the P and C, and you have GH → EXC. Then for me this just became a normal plug and chug assumption question. Our new idea appears in the necessary condition in the conclusion, meaning we throw it onto the necessary condition to chain everything up and we get GH→EXC→/ACCEPT. This looks weird bc the conclusion comes first in the stimulus, but B is a negation of our new conditional. If you accept yourself (not dissatisfied), you're less likely to pursue excellence.

I've never bricked a passage so hard, this sets me back like two months holy

I think I'm finally getting it after staring at this for like an hour. The "only if" statement gives the necessary condition as arriving more than 5 minutes after the bell. Meaning that the sufficient condition of being cited as late only guarantees arriving 5+ minutes after the bell. We aren't given sufficient information to assume that Elias is cited - even though he arrived 17 minutes late - because the sufficient condition does not guarantee citation in the necessary condition. He COULD have been cited, but he wasn't definitely cited. IF you were cited as late, you were DEFINITELY 5+ mins late. Changing the "only if" to "if" switches the sufficient and necessary conditions around, as we know that a sufficient condition comes after "if". So, re-reading the sentence as "Students are cited as late if they arrive more than 5 minutes past the last bell" guarantees that Elias would have been cited. 5+ mins is sufficient for assuming a citation. IF you were 5+ min late, then you were DEFINITELY cited. I hope this is right as I have been struggling with this lmao.

I got A by probably the completely wrong reason. The only time beauty pops up is in the conclusion, when we are told that there must be a difference between beauty and truth. The argument then goes on to say that the most realistic art is the most truthful and so many of the most realistic, ie truthful, are not the best.

The only metric we are able to go on in this argument to prove that there is a difference between beauty and truth is art and what art is the best. So if we take answer choice A it gives us a difference between beauty and truth, supporting the conclusion. Beautiful art is the best and many truthful artworks are not. If we negate A and say beautiful art is not the best, that just shows that beautiful and truthful have a similarity, that they are not the best, which bones the conclusion.

D just threw me off because it sounded too strong. If beautiful, MUST be the best? I don't think the argument hinges on all beautiful arguments being the best.

This might be completely illogical but it worked for me.

The way I got to AC C was by translating it. Whenever I come across a weird double negative I almost always just translate it so it actually reads like english. In this case I translated C to "All sources for historical understand must be considered best by historians or must be neglected by them". So basically that if it's a source it has to fall into one of two categories.

This made C way more clear to me. Since none of the historians point to XYZ as the BEST, then they must neglect them entirely. But that's way too strong. Maybe the historians love architecture but just don't rank it among the best sources for historical understanding.

Might not be the most perfect way to get there but helped me.

Stimulus: when planets form chance for life is high, but chance for large planets is low. If not for Jupiter and Saturn, intelligent life wouldn't have arisen on earth b/c of comets.

Planetary systems are unlikely to contain any large planets, so the chances that intelligent life arise are low.

a. matter??

b. we aren't talking about whether intelligent species' would survive, but rather if they can arise. a species could very well be wiped out by a comet, but as long as a species can arise under the given conditions we are told, we're good.

c. We already know the chance of ANY large planet is unlikely, so why would we be talking about 1 instead of 2?

d. Yes. What if the planetary system contains few to no large comets? Could life then arise? We know that without Jupiter and Saturn, life wouldn't have arisen on Earth. But what about a planetary system where the gravitational pull from large planets doesn't matter because there aren't really any large comets?

E. I thought this was attractive because I was thinking, what if gravitational pull is related to the size of the planet and that's why Jupiter and Saturn were able to draw comets away from earth, but I realize that that's way too far from the stimulus.

The way I'm understanding B - which seems to be different from how JY described it, is that a lack of quality in books is indicative of authors not being interested in making a profit. In the sense that, if you were an author, you wouldn't want to put out sh*tty quality books if you were interested in making a profit. B weakens the conclusion because it shows that due to the decrease in quality of books relates to authors caring less about the quality of their books and thus caring less about profits. I don't know if this makes sense but it's the only line of thought I can get behind to justify B. I originally put E.

This question is crazy man I would have never gotten came to this particular understanding of it on my own. And I like SA questions

really humbling to get a question like this wrong after studying for so long lmao

I got tripped up with D because of "next year." I guess it's a reasonable assumption but I was trying to be critical and thought that since it doesn't actually specify, the exemption might not be exactly the year after the construction is finished. Like wouldn't it technically still be "new" after a few years in building standards? definitely overthinking but still weird

I could not interpret this stimulus for the life of me I don't know why

I eliminated A not only because it doesn't talk about specifically epic poetry but because the function of epic poetry is to transmit values, not to give meaning and direction. Meaning and direction is causally connected to imitating role models. I saw them as a bit too far from each other to draw a meaningful inference. I could be wrong about this but it just didn't follow as strongly as I would have liked for a MUST be true.

I wish I could fist fight this question

bruh

How would the correction of D he made make it the right answer? He said we could edit it by saying "rejects a proposal on the grounds that the person offering it has committed the same act that the proposal is trying to prevent" but didn't he also say that we can't use his past actions as they don't matter if the proposal is for the future? And isn't that exact reason why the correct answer is the correct one? I might totally be overlooking something but I was confused.