Has anyone gotten PT92-LR Q10, 17, 19 right?

Comments

• jobama91 Core Member

  October 2021 edited October 2021 38 karma

  For #10- Strengthening Question, The dentist cites as evidence 5 studies showing that tooth issues in children are proportionally lower in Europe (where water is not fluoridated) than the USA (where water is fluoridated), and argues on the basis of that evidence that fluoridation of water does not substantially prevent tooth decay.

  B is tricky, because they bait you to assume that because Americans use fluoride in their toothpaste and still have more tooth problems, the dentist's argument holds. However, his argument was about the fluoridation of water; he never mentions toothpaste. Whether or not Americans use a certain toothpaste doesn't strengthen the argument that fluoridation in water has no substantial impact on tooth problems.

  E is correct, because it strengthens the dentist's argument by "blocking" a rebuttal. I almost imagined the dentist making this argument, and someone speaking out to say " Wait, it's not that fluoridation doesn't help, its that Americans have worse teeth because of their diet!" E takes that rebuttal away, and therefore strengthens the argument.

  17- Flaw- The author assumes a lot here, but I think the key is ID'ing the conclusion. The author concludes that because the # of students passing last year was well below average, the new curriculum caused instruction quality to decrease. The referential phrase "This" draws our attention back to "well below avg". Okay, but how are we to know that the curriculum impacted instruction? What if this year's class was just really inattentive, or far less dedicated than previous classes? Or, what if the national average is high because everyone else cheats, and this Institute is the only honest institute? How do we know that this Institute's instructors were not always below average? There are too many assumptions made.

  B is incorrect because the author never addresses whether or not quality of instruction has increased; they simply argue that because test results were far below average, quality of instruction has decreased. This flaw is inapplicable here because they never cite evidence of the sort mentioned in AC B.

  C captures the flaw; the author cannot argue that solely because something is below average, the instruction quality must be diminishing. There could be many other reasons why only 1/3 passed last year, and it could be that it was always below average. Or the nat'l avg increased drastically, and they stayed the same.

  19- Again, I think the key to this question is to ID the conclusion. The author concludes that a business that has increased reliance on computers has probably not increased productivity, because productivity dropped in the 60s and 70s as computer tech became widespread/productivity growth has dropped most in industries that heavily rely on computer tech. To weaken this, we would need to attack the support structure of the argument.

  A- sort of explains why the phenomenon has occurred, but doesn't weaken the way the conclusion (productivity growth has probably not increased by using computer tech.) is supported by the premises (drop in the 60s and 70s, drop in heavily reliant industries)

  D- Undermines the premises- conclusion relationship: It says that growth has been greatest in industry that invested heavily in computer tech. The key for me to this one is to realize that just because productivity has been demonstrated as declining, doesn't mean that any business that increased its reliance on computer tech probably didn't experience growth

  Sorry for the long-winded response but hope this helps!
• majilat Member

  October 2021 99 karma

  I would also add that you may have picked A on Q19 because you assumed that those inefficiencies that the industries that relied most heavily on computer technology struggled with were absent or irrelevant to the businesses that increased their reliance on computer technology. However, we cannot make that assumption based solely on the info we have.

  By the way, D is not a perfect Weaken answer. It leaves open the possibility that even those businesses that had the greatest productivity growth actually experienced a decrease in growth since computer technology became widespread. But whatever the cause of that decrease was, it was not because of an increased reliance on computer technology. Remember, "greatest" does not mean "great": the growth of the businesses D refers to is relatively greater than other businesses, but it is not necessarily 1. greater than pre-computer technology world 2. nor great at all.
• bella900 Member

  October 2021 47 karma

  Just my two cents on Q10 answer choice B: for B to strengthen the argument, we would need to assume that kids in Europe do not use fluoride toothpaste.
• leoxnardx Member

  October 2021 82 karma

  For 19, I chose A cuz I had a very hard time understanding the question and the argument under time constraint. Came back to it picked one that I knew had problem.

  The argument is that the productivity growth in INDUSTRIALIZED NATIONS has dropped significantly after computer, and industries that relied the most on computer witnessed the biggest decrease in productivity growth.
  Conclusion: A business that increase reliance on computer has not improved its productivity.

  First I think the connection between NATIONS and INDUSTRIES and the conclusion of A BUSINESS. The answer should connect these two parts. D does that, but A doesn't.

  For A, it simply states the situation with the industry, wasnt what i was looking for regarding connection to BUSINESS. Yes there might be connection between a business and industry, but A has another flaw, which has been pointed out by someone else's comment above. A tricks us into assuming that inefficiencies are caused by computer technologies, but we have no idea where those inefficiencies come from. Yea it seems to be providing an alternative explanation to the argument's point that computer contributed to the inefficiencies, but we don't know that. Maybe the inefficiencies are due to the computers, which strengthens the argument in one sense, maybe not, which provide an alternative explanation. Plus, A says the inefficiencies hindered the growth. What if the inefficiencies simply slowed the growth down, but the computer tech actually made it even lower or reversed the growth? Anyway this should get the point through: to make A correct we have to make a lot of assumptions.

  D is more attractive for weakening for two reason: First for me it connects with the business part, making it more relevant to attack the premise conclusion: You mentioned industries and nations, here I am isolating businesses to show the applicable situation. Also, D directly hits the point of the argument that states increased reliance on computer doesnt do good to a business. D states that no no no, the business with the most growth are those that are the most invested in computer tech. This definitely weakens the argument that says relying more on comp tech doesn't help with growth. My biggest skepticism that made me eliminate D was that investment =/= reliance. And also, D is another correlation/causation type answer. But D, for my own review, still does better at directing the attention to business and providing a quite solid correlation that weakens the premise-conclusion relationship.

  Definitely a 5 star difficulty question. The correct answer is pretty fishy, but for weakening, that might suffice. I'd love to see what JY has to say about this question.
• leoxnardx Member

  October 2021 82 karma

  For 17, I eliminated B on the basis that the argument doesn't present evidence that states the instruction quality hasn't increase. The argument is that because last year, only one-third were able to pass the test. Therefore the curriculum is working to lower the quality of instruction.

  The support for the conclusion is not that there is no evidence of improvement. It is simply stating that they are fucking up, and they are below average. I dont think the author is presenting a lack of improvement and say that this curriculum lowers the quality of instruction. There might be some evidence of improvement, according to what the author said. What if the school has been the rock bottom and before only 1/5 instead of 1/3 got the cert? With what he/she stated in the argument, we cannot infer a statement about how the students are fucking up the test as a lack of improvement. Something that more fitting for lack of evidence of improvement can be like "however, still only 1/3 of the students are passing the test and getting the certs, embarrassing the school as usual before we adopted the new program."

  C is right for that the author is saying we are still below average, therefore the program is lowering the quality. C points right at this problem in the argument. How do you know just because we are below average, the program is LOWERING the quality of instruction? No way we can know that, referring back to the 1/5 to 1/3 example I used earlier.

  Hope this helps.