Very clever argument. We're told that we have two groups of patients, 43 to each group. Everyone's got the same illness and receiving the same treatment. The ONLY difference is that one group is the kumbaya group. You know, we want to test the effectiveness (if it exists) of kumbaya so we isolate it. Okay, so... this is exciting what are the results? Well, the next premise tells us that after 200 years, everyone's dead. Therefore (the conclusion says), kumbaya does nothing.
See how ridiculous that argument is? I know I said 200 years whereas the actual premise said 10 years. But, 10 could also be just as ridiculous depending on what assumptions we entertain. How old are the patients? If they're 20 years old, then okay, fine, 10 years is whatever. If they're 100 years old already, then a 10 years later result is ridiculous to report. Of course everyone's dead.
That's precisely the subtly that (C) calls out. (C) says "Look, you should have reported on the results 8 years after, not 10. If you reported 8 years later, then most of the kumbaya group would be alive, while most of the non-kumbaya group would be dead."
(A) is tempting and it certainly doesn't help the argument, but it's a big stretch to say that it hurts the argument. First, we're left with just 4 data points of the original 86. It would be overgeneralizing to say something about the 86 sample from the 4 data points. Second, consider just the data points themselves. All we're told is that the kumbaya 2 lived longer than the non-kumaya 2. Okay, how much longer? 5 years? That'd be nice. Or just 5 seconds? That'd be useless.
Sufficient Assumption question, pretty standard, cookie cutter question that we should be able to anticipate the answer choice.
But, it's difficult because of the embedded argument within an argument, heavy use of referential phrasing, and grammar parsing.
Author's argument begins with "however". The text before "however" is just context/other people's argument that will later serve as the referent for a referential phrase used in the conclusion.
"one must mine the full imp... to make intell prog"
Think about what's necessary and what's sufficient in this relationship. Does mining the full imp guarantee that we'll make intell prog? No. It's the other way around.
"for this, thinkers need intell discipline"
What does "this" refer to?
If you answer both of the above questions correctly, you'll end up with the proper translation of the premise below:
intell prog --> mine full imp --> intell discipline
The conclusion says "this argument for free thought fails". This takes a bit of interpreting. Look at all the text before "however". That's where we get the argument for "free thought". What's the conclusion? Focus on the indicator "because". The conclusion is "free thought is a precondition for intell prog". Now, what's the relationship here? A precondition. Something we must have. A necessary condition.
intell prog --> free thought
That's just the contextual conclusion though. Our author is arguing that that's wrong.
NOT (intell prog --> free thought)
Fully translated, it looks like this:
intell prog --> mine full imp --> intell discipline
_______________
NOT (intell prog --> free thought)
So, how do we make this argument valid? We can make intell discipline imply NO free thought. (C) gives us the contrapositive.
free thought --> NO intell discipline.
Inez: The book we are reading, The Nature of Matter, is mistitled. A title should summarize the content of the whole book, but nearly half of this book is devoted to discussing a different, albeit closely related subject: energy.
Antonio: I do not think that the author erred; according to modern physics, matter and energy are two facets of the same phenomenon.
Summary
Inez says that the book The Nature of Matter should have a different title. Why? Because almost half the book is about energy, and Inez thinks a title should summarize the entire book.
Antonio thinks that the title The Nature of Matter is actually fine, because modern physics considers matter and energy to be part of the same phenomenon.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
The conversation supports these inferences:
Inez thinks that the book’s title doesn’t summarize the entire book.
Inez thinks that if the book’s title mentions matter, it should also mention energy.
Antonio either thinks that the book’s title does summarize the entire book, or that summarizing the entire book is not necessary for a good book title.
Inez and Antonio disagree about whether the book is correctly titled.
A
Inez believes that the book should be called The Nature of Energy.
This is not supported. Inez says that a book’s title should summarize the entire book, but more than half of this book is about matter. Thus, replacing “Matter” with “Energy” in the title would just make the problem worse—then it would summarize less than half of the book.
B
Antonio believes that there are no differences between matter and energy.
This is not supported. Antonio calls matter and energy “two facets of the same phenomenon,” which indicates that they are different: they’re different facets. Just because they’re part of the same phenomenon, doesn’t mean they have no differences.
C
Inez and Antonio disagree on whether matter and energy are related.
This is not supported. Inez and Antonio both feel that matter and energy are related. Inez calls them “closely related,” while Antonio explains that they’re two parts of the same phenomenon—meaning they must be related.
D
Inez and Antonio disagree about the overall value of the book.
This is not supported. Neither Inez nor Antonio actually indicates their thoughts on the overall value of the book. They’re just discussing whether or not they like the title.
E
Inez believes that the book’s title should not mention matter without mentioning energy.
This is strongly supported. Inez’s complaint is that the book’s title doesn’t summarize the book’s whole contents: the book discusses both matter and energy, while the title only mentions matter. Including matter but not energy is what makes it an insufficient summary.
The question stem reads: The biologist’s argument is most vulnerable to criticism on which one of the following grounds? This is a Flaw question.
The biologist begins by describing how many paleontologists suggest that the difficulties of the ice age were a cause of the evolution of the human brain. The biologist concludes those palentologists are wrong. In other words, the ice age was not responsible for the evolution of the human brain. As evidence, the biologist cites that many animal species survived the ice age with no evolutionary changes to their brain.
The biologist has hypothesized that the ice age was not repsonsbile for the evolution of the human brain. If we were to construct an ideal experiment to test this hypothesis, what kind of subjects would you want to use? You would want to use human brains! However, the biologist instead uses animals brains as evidence. The question is, “Are humans and animals” the same? Maybe. Maybe not. The biologist’s argument relies on the assumption that humans and animals would respond to the evolutionary pressures of the ice age in the same way. So let’s look for an answer choice that distinguishes how animal brains and human brains would respond to the ice age.
Answer Choice (A) is incorrect. The biologist does not suggest that the ice age was sufficient or necessary to produce brain evolution in humans or animals.
Correct Answer Choice (B) draws the distinction between humans and animals that we are looking for. The biologist fails to consider the possibility that the ice age could have produced the evolution of the brain in humans without producing the evolution of the brain in other species.
Answer Choice (C) is incorrect. The argument is not about whether the ice age was necessary for producing changes in the brains of humans or animals. The argument is about whether the ice age was sufficient to bring about changes in the brains of humans and animals.
Answer Choice (D) is incorrect. The biologist never presumes that humans had a more difficult time during the ice age than animals.
Answer Choice (E) is incorrect. The biologist does not presume that the ice age was causally responsible for the evolution of human brains. He concludes that the ice age was not casusualy responsible for the evolution of human brains.
The Question Stem reads: The lawyer's conclusion follows logically if which one of the following is assumed? This is a Sufficient Assumption question.
The lawyer begins by describing how this witness was present at the restaurant when the lawyer's famous client was assaulted. However, the witness claims to recognize the assailant but not the famous client. The lawyer concludes the witness's testimony should be excluded. We can break down the argument to read:
P1: Witness claims to recognize the assailant
P2: Witness claims not to recognize the victim (Famous client)
________________
C: Exclude witness testimony
In the CC, we discussed that elements of the conclusion must be in the premises. Nowhere in the premises do we see a claim about what kind of testimony should not be included. We need a conditional that brings us to "exclude testimony," so let's make that our necessary condition: (__) -> Exclude testimony.
Now it will be hard to anticipate what sufficient condition the AC will use. They could use P1 or P2 or some combination of both. When we screen these answer choices, the first order of business will be to make sure that the necessary condition is: "exclude testimony" Then we will check the sufficient condition to ensure it gets triggered by the information in the stimulus. Let's go.
Answer Choice (A) has the necessary condition "then the witness's testimony should be included." Without looking at the rest of the (A), we can eliminate it because it takes us to "include" when we want to go to "exclude." If you picked (A), you likely assumed that "claims recognize both parties -> include" implied that "/(claims recognize both parties) -> exclude," which is a logical fallacy. Remember: a->b does not imply /a->/b.
Answer Choice (B) is arbitrary. Why would the fact that other witnesses can identify the client mean we should exclude the witness from the stimulus? Nothing. Eliminate and move on.
Answer Choice (C) is also arbitrary because it does not bring us to a conclusion "exclude testimony." As a side note, whether or not we can know if the witness actually recognized the assailant is irrelevant. Notice how the premises only take into account who the victim claims to recognize. The lawyer's argument is going to rely on the witness's claims, not what actually is the case.
Correct Answer Choice (D) gets us to where we need to go. If we take the contrapositive of (D), we get: "/(claims to recognize both parties in assault) -> exclude." The necessary condition is exactly what we discussed. The sufficient condition is great. The witness did not claim to recognize both parties in the assault. The witness claims to recognize only the assailant. So the conditional triggers and delivers us to the conclusion that the witness's testimony should be excluded.
Answer Choice (E) is a popular wrong answer. If you picked (E), you likely inferred that the witness was lying about not recognizing the famous victim. First, that is not an inference you can make. Just because it is unlikely that someone wouldn't recognize the famous client, that does not mean it is impossible that someone would fail to recognize the client. Second, even if we could infer that the witness was lying, it wouldn't help us. What does lying have to do with excluding testimony? If you answered that "liars testimony should be excluded," you've proved that (E) by itself is insufficient to draw the lawyer's argument.
The arrival of television in North America did not lead to a decline in new book publications or in book sales.
An increase in new books sold each year does not always coincide with an increase in library circulation.