RRE questions

PhilWalsh

The LR question I seem to have the most trouble with are easy to moderately challenging RRE questions. Like seriously I've gotten 25/26 on a section and the only one wrong was an RRE that 95% of student got correct. This problem may itself be a paradox I need help resolving.

I'm not sure how to fix this, so I'm going to share some of my thought process and if any of you have suggestions that would be useful.

One problem I got that threw me for a loop was

Cat's spend much of their time sleeping, they seem only to awake to stretch and yawn. Yet they have strong agile musculature that most animals would have to exercise strenuously to acquire.

My first thought is that there is obviously a biological difference in cats that allows them to be muscular without exercising much.

I saw the correct answer, "Cats get ample exercise from frequent stretching." and immediately I thought this in no way addresses my problem. No matter how much exercise they're getting from stretching would anyone ever classify stretching as strenuous? Not unless they're in a yoga class. That seems to be a huge assumption. That's an equivocation, stretching does not equal strenuous and it misses my resolution that cats are biologically different.

I then didn't really like any of the answer choices, and settled on a wrong one that felt less wrong because it somewhat addressed my kind of biological developmental need idea, "Cats require strength and agility to be effective predators." and I hemmed and hawed because what if all animals require this strength and agility?

Point being is I'm trying to develop a better way to think about these that allows the correct answer to always stand out more, and am open to any suggestions if anyone has them.

CoolHumanPerson

I know a very popular approach to solving RRE questions is to first come up with your own resolution and then check the answer choices—this seems to be your strategy as well. I’ve tried that too, but it never really worked for me. I use a simpler pre-phrase for these types of questions: If there is a world where X is true, what is the one thing that will ensure Y is also true in the same world?

I’ve accepted the fact that I’m not a subject-matter expert on 99.99% of the topics the RRE stimuli present, and guessing feels like a waste of time. Instead, I’d rather spend that time eliminating one really bad answer choice. If I’m analyzing an answer choice and come across something confusing (which happens more than I’d like to admit), I just remind myself of my pre-phrase: I’m looking for something that explains how X and Y can coexist in the same world.

PhilWalsh

@CoolHumanPerson I'll try this, thank you very much for taking the time to help. You are indeed a cool human person.