replying and upvoting so this comment gets more traction! this video was actually so helpful.

Basically, the sociologist found that:

65+: Of the 65+ group, more than 25% of them were malnourished, while only 12% suffered from poverty.

65 and younger: Of the 65 and younger group, the % of people malnourished < the % of people suffering from poverty.

The discrepancy: “Why does malnutrition far outrun poverty among people over 65, when it doesn’t among younger people?”

AC A: “Doctors are less likely to correctly diagnose and treat malnutrition in their patients who are over 65 than in their younger patients.” This AC says that malnutrition in the 65+ group is less likely to be correctly caught and treated, so it lingers instead of being fixed. The 25% is a real, measured rate (the study used a physical exam, so doctors’ errors don’t distort it), and AC A explains why that rate stays high. Because older people’s malnutrition is treated less often than younger people’s, more of them are actually malnourished at the time of the exam, regardless of their income. For example, if the same share of each group became malnourished, but doctors cleared most of the younger group’s cases and few of the older group’s, the older group would end up with a much higher malnutrition % at the time of the study. This explains why malnutrition outruns poverty in people aged 65+. It’s also the weakest of the four helpers, since it only works through the word “treat.”

AC B: “People over 65 are more likely to take medications that increase their need for certain nutrients than are people 65 or younger.” This also explains why malnutrition outruns poverty in people aged 65+. AC B does this by saying that the medication people aged 65+ take actually makes them need more nutrients, which explains the higher malnutrition %. This gives us an explanation of how a person can be malnourished and not poor: financially sufficient 65+ aged individuals can be taking medications that make them more malnourished. Poverty is a separate measurement that these medications never touch, so the malnutrition % can rise in the 65+ group while the poverty % stays at 12%. Since older people are more likely to take these medications, the factor applies more to the 65+ group, which is the direction we need.

AC C: “People over 65 are more likely to suffer from loss of appetite due to medication than are people 65 or younger.” This also explains why malnutrition outruns poverty in people aged 65+. Similar to AC B, the medication that financially sufficient 65+ aged individuals take makes them less hungry, which in turn makes them malnourished. Again, this gives us an explanation of how the poverty % in the 65+ group can be less than half of the malnutrition % in the group. Poverty is a separate measurement that the medication never affects, so some people aged 65+ who are not suffering from poverty can become malnourished due to a medication causing loss of appetite, which raises the malnutrition % without touching the poverty %. Since older people are more likely to suffer this loss of appetite, the factor applies more to the 65+ group. (Note the difference from B: B raises the body’s need for nutrients, while C lowers how much a person eats.)

AC D: “People 65 or younger are no more likely to fall below government poverty standards than are people over 65.” “No more likely,” what does this mean? “I am no more likely to score a basket in the NBA than my friend.” This simply means that I am either equally or less likely than my friend to score a basket in the NBA. Bringing this back to AC D, people 65 or younger are equally as likely or less likely to fall below poverty standards than are people 65+. This basically means that people 65 or younger have a poverty % of 12% or lower because people 65+ have a poverty % of 12%. But this doesn’t help the argument. Because we know that the malnutrition % of people 65 or younger is always less than the poverty % of people 65 or younger, the phenomenon observed is just preserved. AC D adds no cause of malnutrition and only compares poverty rates, so we don’t get any type of explanation for why malnutrition outruns poverty for people aged 65+. If anything, it removes poverty as a possible source of the difference between the groups.

AC E: “People 65 or younger are less likely to have medical conditions that interfere with their digestion than are people over 65.” Again, this helps explain why malnutrition outruns poverty in people aged 65+. Flipping things around, AC E essentially says, “People 65+ are more likely to have medical conditions that interfere with their digestion than are people 65 or younger.” Irrespective of poverty, this explains how the malnutrition % is more than double the poverty % in the 65+ age group: even if someone aged 65+ is not poor, if they have medical conditions interfering with digestion, this can cause malnutrition, which would cause the malnutrition % to increase even though they are not poor.

D is the right answer choice. The stimulus heavily suggests that watching yourself exercise motivates you to exercise more. Why? Well, because of a recent study. The recent study between two groups found the following:

One group watched themselves running on a treadmill, while a second group watched other people running on a treadmill. The first group reported exercising, on average, 1 hour longer each day than the other participants (the second group). Therefore, the author believes that watching yourself exercise will motivate you to exercise more.

However, we have to take a step back and ask ourselves, "Are there other factors that might cause the first group to report exercising longer than the second group?" Because this is a most weakens question, we are searching for an answer choice that provides us with a reasonable alternative to why the first group might have reported exercising more each day.

AC A: "People who watched themselves lift weights exercised longer than those who watched themselves run." The author never suggests this. All we know from the conclusion is that watching yourself exercise can motivate you to exercise more. But more than what? More than those who don't record themselves. We have no information on whether watching yourself perform exercise X motivates you to exercise longer than watching yourself perform exercise Y. AC A neither strengthens nor weakens the argument.

AC B: "People were more likely to donate to charity after hearing stories about people like themselves giving to charity." If anything, this seems to strengthen the argument. It parallels the idea that watching yourself (or hearing stories of people you think you resemble) do a certain action makes you motivated to perform the action even more.

AC C: "People who were already working out a lot before the study started didn't increase their daily exercise time during the study." C seems tempting until you understand what it is saying. Imagine someone came up to the author and said, "Your conclusion that watching yourself exercise will motivate you to exercise more is wrong because highly motivated people, who exercise regularly, are not going to exercise more." The author could just respond, "Well, of course, if you're already motivated, then watching yourself exercise will probably not change how long you exercise for. But my conclusion is for people who are not already motivated." AC C neither helps nor weakens the argument.

AC D: "In a study of twins (say twin A and twin B), if twin A saw twin B reading, twin A then overreported how much time they themselves spent reading in the following days." Yes, this explains the idea of "the other factor". It could be the case that the participants in the first group actually did feel more motivated to exercise when they watched themselves exercise, and thus, accurately reported exercising more than participants in the second group. But it could also be the case that, as AC D states, the participants in the first group simply overreported how many hours they exercised after watching themselves. So far, AC D is the only answer choice that gives an alternate hypothesis for why the first group reported exercising more. In other words, AC D is saying, "Wait, hold on. Yes, the first group reported exercising 1 hour longer each day after watching themselves running on treadmills. But did you stop to consider that maybe, even if they watched themselves running on treadmills, the participants in the first group simply just overreported how long they exercised for after watching themselves? In which case, watching yourself exercise does not actually motivate you to exercise more, because the participants in group 1 mistakenly overreported the hours they exercised."

AC E: "Another group that watched themselves sitting on couches reported being sedentary longer than other participants." Like AC B, this strengthens the argument. It helps support the idea that watching yourself do an action makes you more inclined to do that action.

Hi friends, so I was frustrated too that we were only given the stimulus without the answer choices. But I realized that right under the lesson title (i.e., for this lesson, Lesson 2 - Schoolchildren), there is a button that says "Show question," which gives you the option to view the question with the answer choices! Hope this helps!

For those confused between AC A and C, think of it like this. The conclusion in the stimulus basically states: "If a meeting at the company is maximally productive, then it had a clear time frame and was no longer than 30 minutes." In other words, we can understand it as:

Maximally Productive --> Has Certain Features

AC A confuses sufficiency and necessity. It says:

Has Certain Features --> Maximally Productive

It mistakenly claims that a meeting that has these certain features will guarantee maximum productivity, which is not what the author is arguing.

AC C gets it right. It says:

Maximally Productive --> Has Certain Features

Yes, this is what we are looking for. Remember "only if" indicates that anything that follows the phrase is a necessary condition. Having these "certain features" is necessary IF the meeting is maximally productive.

lol, I was feeling pretty confident with this concept so I immediately clicked A because it was true. I was happy to finally be under time for once.

Forgot to read the whole question, which specifically asked to find the one answer choice that was not true. LOL, lesson learned.

Anyway, my mapping:

Most beautiful cats <-- s --> Persian cats

Persian cats --> Pompous

Pompous --> Irritating

Answer choice A is correct because "some of the world's most beautiful cats are irritating" can be mapped as:

Most beautiful cats <-- s --> Persian cats --> Pompous --> Irritating

Most beautiful cats <-- s --> Irritating

We can eliminate A.

Answer choice B is correct because "some irritating cats are among the world's most beautiful cats" can be mapped as:

Irritating <-- s --> Most beautiful

A and B say the same thing and are true; we can eliminate B.

Answer choice C is correct because "any cat that is not irritating is not a Persian cat" can be mapped as:

/Pompous --> /Persian cat (taking the contrapositive of: Persian cats --> Pompous)

We can eliminate C.

Answer choice D is correct because "some pompous cats are among the world's most beautiful cats" can be mapped as:

Most beautiful cats <-- s --> Persian cats --> Pompous

=> Most beautiful cats <-- s --> Pompous

OR

Pompous <-- s --> Most beautiful cats

We can eliminate D.

By process of elimination, E is the right answer choice.

Hey, if it helps, here's my reasoning (note, I use "~" to denote negation):

As with question 2, we can move the sufficient condition of "Newly arrived cats at Anjellicle Cats Rescue" into the domain to simplify the argument. We are then left with an embedded conditional, which leaves our setup as:

Domain 1: Newly arrived cats at Anjellicle Cats Rescue

~ Part of a bonded pair of cats --> (Cats waiting 4+ weeks --> ~ Available)

Now, because an exception is involved, we use 1 of the 3 techniques for "rules and exceptions". I chose the Domain + Rule Framework because it makes the most sense to me. Because the Domain + Rule Framework makes the sufficient condition outside the embedded conditional the domain, we get:

Domain 2: ~ Part of a bonded pair of cats

Rule: Cats waiting 4+ weeks --> ~ Available

Now, to conclude, we have to assess the facts given to us. We know "Mittens and Nittens are 1) newly arrived and 2) not a bonded pair". This means they are both inside Domain 1 and 2 (we assume, by default, they arrived at Anjellicle Cats Rescue, or else the whole conditional fails). Given they are inside both domains, we know the rule applies!

However, because all we know is that they are NOT a part of a bonded pair of cats, the only thing we can conclude is the rule itself:

If there are cats waiting longer than 4 weeks to be adopted, Mittens and Nittens are not available to be adopted.

Why? Unlike question 2, where we were given that "Nittens is available for adoption," question 3 tells us nothing. We know nothing about whether cats are waiting 4+ weeks to be adopted, or if Mittens and Nittens are available to be adopted.

If question 3 instead said, "Newly arrived Mittens and Nittens are, despite what their names might suggest, not a bonded pair but are available for adoption," we can make a conclusion!

Why? The rule says:

Rule: Cats waiting 4+ weeks --> ~ Available

If we take the contrapositive of the rule, we get:

Rule (contrapositive): Available --> ~ 4+ weeks

Therefore, we know that because Mittens and Nittens are available to be adopted, there must not be any cats waiting more than 4 weeks to be adopted!

If it helps anyone, here's how I broke down 5)

The Reach, the Vale, and Dorne are kingdoms within Westeros. The kingdoms in Westeros whose economies rely predominantly on trade support foreign policies that aim to secure peace. A kingdom will not support peaceable foreign policies unless it stands to benefit from the absence of war. The Vale supports peace-securing foreign policies.

Note: I use "~" to denote negation

Domain: Kingdoms in Westeros

Rely on trade --> Support foreign policies to secure peace

~ Benefit from the absence of war --> ~ Support foreign policies to secure peace

Support foreign policies to secure peace --> Benefit from the absence of war

Rely on trade --> Support foreign policies to secure peace --> Benefit from the absence of war

Vale supports foreign policies to secure peace. 

Because Vale is a kingdom in Westeros (it falls inside the domain), the rules apply. Given that Vale supports foreign policies to secure peace, we can conclude that they will benefit from the absence of war.

Q4 tripped me up as well until I thought about what it was trying to communicate. I thought it was comparing the quantity of sophisticated instruments, not the quality of the instruments.

Instead, it is stating that: "to detect planets outside of our solar system requires more sophisticated instruments (as in, more complex or stronger instruments) than the instruments we currently have available."

In other words, the instruments we have currently are inadequate to detect planets outside our solar system; we need instruments that are more sophisticated.

It could help to modify the phrase "more sophisticated instruments" to "instruments that are more sophisticated" to make it more explicit:

"Detecting planets outside our solar system requires instruments that are more sophisticated than are currently available."

In this way, we see we are dealing with a quality claim, not a quantity one.