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.
We’ve got a MSS question which we can tell from the question stem: If the statements above are true, which one of the following is the most strongly supported on the basis of them?
The stimulus starts with what looks like a sentence of contextual information which introduces us to a category: common threats to life. The embedded phrase between the commas gives us examples of common threats to life: automobile and industrial accidents. We’re told that only unusual instances of common threats like these receive coverage from the news media.
We then have a shift into what looks like our potential argument (remember that MSS requires us to find a conclusion that completes said argument). This shift is indicated by the “however” that’s wedged into the middle of the next sentence. We then get a premise that introduces us to another category: rare threats. We also get an example of rare threats: product tampering. We are told that instances of rare threats are seen as news and universally reported by reporters in featured stories.
Ok so we know that the media always reports instances of rare threats, but only reports unusual instances of common threats. We then get some information about how the media impacts the population at large: people tend to estimate the risk of threats based on how often those threats come to their attention.
What’s a common way things come to our attention? Well, the media, right? Do we see a potential connection here?
Media covers rare threats instead of common threats. People see coverage of rare threats but not common threats. People perceive greater risk from rare threats because they estimate risk based on how often something comes to their attention.
Seems like a good synthesis of the information we’ve been given! Now let’s go to the answer choices:
Answer Choice (A) We have no information about governmental action. We know about news coverage of risks and the way that individuals perceive risk, but we do not have enough information to draw any conclusions about the government.
Answer Choice (B) We are only given information about the amount of coverage that two types of risk are given. We don’t know anything about the quality of risk and how that affects people. We just know that the amount that people think about risks impacts how those individuals estimate the likelihood of those potential risks coming to fruition.
Correct Answer Choice (C) We know that people estimate risk based on how often it comes to their attention. People who get information primarily from the news media (the same news media that covers rare threats more than common threats) would be likely to perceive higher risk of uncommon (i.e. rare) threats relative to common threats because of the amount of coverage they receive. This is is fully supported by our stimulus, and therefore, correct!
Answer Choice (D) We don’t get any information in our stimulus about how the element of time plays into threats or coverage of threats, so there is nothing to support this answer.
Answer Choice (E) Hard to know where to start with this one! We don't have any information about money or resources spent on threats, so we can safely (and quickly) rule this AC out.