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We should recognize this is a strengthening question, since it asks: Which one of the following, if true, would most strengthen the argument?

Our stimulus begins by telling us that advertisers are often seen as unscrupulous (lacking restraint, essentially) in how they manipulate people’s desires. However, we’re then told that there is some evidence to the contrary; some advertisers are ethically motivated! That’s nice I guess, but I’m a bit skeptical; ‘ethical’ and ‘advertiser’ just don’t seem to go together often! Let’s see what evidence we have for this claim.

The argument cites a particular incidence where advertisers withdrew from a newspaper as it began to concentrate on sex and violence. Seems like the newspaper wants to profit from people’s desires! Our argument concludes the advertisers must have withdrew because they didn’t approve morally of the newspaper’s decision. This is the interpretation of the event which we want to support. What initially occurs to me is that it is entirely possible that the advertisers thought it would reflect badly on them if they were in the newspaper and could lose them money, and therefore their decision could have been entirely cynical. An answer choice which eliminates this alternate hypothesis that the advertisers were financially-motivated would be a good one. Let’s see what we get:

Answer Choice (A) Interesting, but this could be true if the advertisers withdrew for cynical reasons. This answer doesn’t give us enough information about the advertisers motives which is what we are interested in.

Answer Choice (B) We aren’t interested in those advertisers, we want to support a particular explanation of why some existing advertisers withdrew.

Correct Answer Choice (C) Bingo! If the advertisers knowingly took a haircut on their profits, that eliminates the alternate explanation that they did it all out of fear of losing money from not withdrawing.

Answer Choice (D) Ok? This, if anything, would lend support that the advertisers were motivated by financial rather than ethical considerations, and not strengthen our hypothesis.

Answer Choice (E) We don’t know whether this income group is poorer or richer and how that would affect the advertisers. Even if we did, how would it support our hypothesis that the advertisers withdrew because they were moral?


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This is a most strongly supported question, though it may be difficult to identify. Remember that on MSS questions, like must be true questions, our answer choices are essentially conclusions we are adding to the stimulus. What indicates that this is a MSS question rather than a MBT is that it only asks which conclusion the argument leads to, not which one it guarantees to be true. The stem asks: The argument is structured to lead to which one of the following conclusions?

This is one of those long stimuluses which can make your eyes glaze over if you’re not careful. It throws a lot of information and language at us, but if we are able to focus on the overall structure and points of the argument, the question is actually fairly easy. The first sentence tells us that households having death is considered a possible cause of the recent recession, and that household assets was also high prior to the recession. Ok, so maybe debt was the problem but households overall actually had a lot of wealth. The next sentence gives us some more insight into how we can break this information down more meaningfully; was it poor or rich households that were carrying all the debt? If poor people were submerged in debt then that would support household debt being the cause. However, we learn that money is generally only lent to those with assets, and therefore it must have been the wealthy carrying the debt. From all this information, the author concludes the real cause must lie elsewhere. The answer choices are more detailed conclusions we can add on to this argument. The conclusion that would follow from the stimulus information with the least assumptions required will be the correct answer. On to the answers!

Correct Answer Choice (A) Bingo! This is basically just a more explicit restatement of our stimulus conclusion. The real cause must lie elsewhere, as in, not in high levels of household debt.

Answer Choice (B) We have to assume a ton of things to make this conclusion, because we’ve been told nothing about the outcome of the recession.

Answer Choice (C) Again we’ve been told very little about what happened during the recession, just about the state preceding it. Moreover, if there was a lot of household debt, and only affluent people could have been holding the debt, then it’s unlikely they would be increasing their spending during a recession while laden with debt.

Answer Choice (D) This is way too general a conclusion. We’ve been told that high levels of household debt may not have caused the recession, but that doesn’t mean they don’t otherwise have a large economic impact.

Answer Choice (E) If anything the opposite is suggested, since we are told both the debt and value of assets owned by households was high.


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Here we have a flaw question, which we know from the question stem: “Which of the following describes an error of reasoning in the merchants’ argument?” Right away we know our correct answer has to do two things: be descriptively accurate, and describe the flaw of the stimulus. We also know what the wrong answers will do - describe reasoning flaws we’ve seen before, but don’t like up with our stimulus. Once we have a clear understanding of the questrion’s objective, we can proceed into structural analysis of the stimulus.

Our argument begins with a proposed law restricting outdoor advertising abilities in Penglai to small signs of a standard shape identifying a place of business. Next, we are introduced to the opposition. We learn some island merchants are protesting the proposed law because the overall amount of business being brought in would be reduced. The protestors’ base their reasoning on a government study where businesses with outdoor advertising tended to have a bigger market share than those who did not use outdoor advertising.

Ultimately, our speaker is concluding causation from correlation. Simply on the basis that business with outdoor advertising happened to have more business the speaker concludes the increased business is because of the use of outdoor advertising. Remember that our conclusion is something that has to be true on the basis of our premises. Just because these businesses have two qualities at the same time does not mean we can assume a causal relationship. It could be the case that a third outside factor impacts both business volume and outdoor advertising trends in the exact same way.

Knowing that our speaker incorrectly presumes causation from a correlation, we can proceed into answer choice elimination.

Answer Choice (A) This is not descriptively accurate. Our argument does not claim there are simply no reasons to enact the law. Instead, our argument claims that there is a bad impact that would follow from the enactment of the law.

Correct Answer Choice (B) This is exactly what we are looking for. This descriptively accurate answer choice is the only option that points out the existence of a third factor explaining the results in the government’s study. Answer choice B explains that businesses were more successful using outdoor advertising not because it raises the level of overall business available, but simply because it allows businesses to poach customers from their competitors. This points out the strength of the argument’s conclusion. Our speaker did not conclude that businesses with outdoor advertising were generating more business - instead, they were stealing business from their competitors.

Answer Choice (C) This answer is descriptively accurate, but not the ultimate issue in our stimulus. Whether or not the study is objective (100% factual without subjectivity) does not change the fact that our author incorrectly interpreted the meaning of the study.

Answer Choice (D) Here, we have another answer choice that is technically correct in description but does not identify the true issue with our argument. By telling us that the argument fails to establish that market share was exactly proportional to advertising, this answer choice does not attack the causal mistake seen in the argument.

Answer Choice (E) This brings us to our last descriptively correct answer choice that fails to describe the true issue of our stimulus. The consideration of this law being “constitutional” does not connect to any sort of the reasoning presented in the stimulus. Knowing our correct answer choice will highlight the flaw with the author’s interpretation of the study, we can eliminate this answer.

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We can identify this question as Method of Reasoning because of the question stem: “Jonathan uses which one of the following techniques in his response to Lydia?”

When dealing with a Method of Reasoning question, we know we are looking for an answer choice that correctly describes the structure of our entire argument. Our correct answer is going to fit the argument exactly. Our wrong answer choices likely explain argument structures we are familiar with, but that simply don’t apply to the specific question we are looking at. Knowing what the right and wrong answers are going to do, we can jump into the stimulus.

Immediately we should make note of the two speakers at play. This means we could possibly be dealing with two different conclusions with different levels of support. Our first speaker, Lydia, tells us seabirds often become entangled in equipment owned by fishing companies. Lydia concludes on the basis of this that the fishing companies should assume responsibility for the medical treatment of these animals.

Lydia’s position makes an assumption here. If our conclusion tells us that something should happen, our evidence needs to give us reasoning to guarantee the outcome should occur. Perhaps, for instance, there is a law indicating those causing harm to animals should be responsible for them. But without this information the evidence does not automatically lead to the conclusion that the fisherman should be responsible for anything.

Jonathan does not quite hit the assumption out of the ballpark. In response, our second speaker concludes the proposal should not be adopted because the most injured birds won’t be able to return to the wild. Remind yourself here of how uncertain the number of “most injured birds” is. Perhaps 99.99% of the birds are injured mildly and 0.01% are the “most injured” with extensive injuries. Putting things into context, Jonathon’s response asking us to consider a group that could be impossibly small and irrelevant to Lydia’s ultimate conclusion.

Knowing that we are looking for an answer choice that will highlight Jonathon’s use of a small subset of these animals in a (poor) attempt to weaken Lydia’s reasoning we can jump into answer choice elimination.

Answer Choice (A) This answer choice accuses Lydia of a personal attack. But without any reference to Lydia’s motivation or other personal characteristics, we have to eliminate this answer from contention.

Answer Choice (B) We can eliminate this answer for a similar reason why we eliminated answer choice A. Like a personal attack, B accuses Lydia of being wrapped up in their personal interests - an attack we do not see used as the reasoning for Jonathon’s conclusion.

Answer Choice (C) This answer choice goes too far in the extreme. By accusing our second speaker of not wanting to interfere with wildlife in any way, this answer choice claims Jonathon’s conclusion goes even further than we can see in the stimulus.

Correct Answer Choice (D) This is exactly the answer we are looking for! This is the only answer choice that references Jonathon’s use of the sickest group of birds in an attempt to weaken Lydia’s argument.

Answer Choice (E) While Lydia’s feelings are addressed at the beginning of Jonathan’s argument, this is not the reasoning used to prove Jonathon’s main point. They claim we should not adopt the proposal because of this sub-group of birds. Not because of Lydia’s personal feelings in the matter.


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This is a Flaw/Descriptive Weakening question, more specifically, we need to figure out why the therapist’s response to the interviewer is flawed.

Let’s look at what the Interviewer is saying. In his first sentence, he is talking about the therapist’s claims, saying that biofeedback, diet changes, and better sleep habits succeed in curing insomnia. This is a causal claim. In the next sentence, he elaborates on another claim: with rigorous adherence to the proper treatment, any case of insomnia will be cured. Another causal claim. There is a tone clue here: “You go so far as to claim that…” That makes me think this author doesn’t buy the therapist’s claims. I’m thinking these are both premises, since they represent other people’s ideas.

In the next sentence, we see a “yet;” there is a shift. We were talking about the therapist’s claims, now we’re going to be talking about something that’s probably at odds with the earlier claims. Reading on, that’s exactly the case: our author says that some insomniac patients do not respond to treatment.

So far, all of these sentences look like premises. No sentence is providing support to another sentence. The interviewer is outlining the therapist’s claims and then stating a fact. Well, how can we figure out what the argument is saying without the conclusion??

The conclusion here is implicit. We have enough tonal clues and claims to assume what the author probably thinks. His implicit conclusion is: the therapist’s claim (with rigorous adherence to the proper treatment, any case of insomnia is curable) isn’t realistic. Why? Take a look at that last sentence: “…some patients suffering from insomnia do not respond to treatment.”

The therapist’s counter to this is a single, conditional line: when patient don’t respond to treatment, this just means that they are not rigorous in adhering to their treatment. There is no conclusion here; however, we can assume the implicit conclusion is denying the interviewer’s conclusion. Basically, the therapist’s conclusion would be “my claim still holds."

Why is this argument flawed? It’s circular reasoning: he’s repeating a claim the interviewer attributed to him: with rigorous adherence to proper treatment, insomnia is curable. He’s ignoring the evidence that the interviewer puts forth to discredit him and sneakily assuming a causal relationship that isn’t valid.

Two things:

First: when the interviewer says: “Patients suffering from insomnia do not respond to treatment,” he could have been talking about patients who did adhere to the proper treatment rigorously.

Knowing this allows us to understand the possibility of the next point:

Second: the therapist says that if the patients do not respond, it must be because they didn’t adhere rigorously to the treatment. He’s assuming causation when, as we mentioned above, it could be that patients did adhere to the treatment rigorously and there is another reason the treatment was not effective.

There are a couple of flaws here: first, the illicit causal relationship, and second, the circular reasoning. Let’s go into the answer choices, making sure we hit our two-step test: is this answer choice descriptively accurate? Is this the flaw?

Correct Answer Choice (A) Not only is this descriptively accurate, but it represents the issue of assuming causation and circular reasoning. The argument is ignoring evidence that could show that patients were following the treatment rigorously, and asserts his claims as if the disconfirming evidence would not affect the validity of his claims.

Answer Choice (B) This is not descriptively accurate – treatment is used with consistent meaning throughout the stimulus.

Answer Choice (C) This is descriptively accurate, but it is not a flaw. While there could be different causes for different cases of insomnia, this does not mean that the treatment for each needs to be different. This answer choice does not address the issue of why the argument is flawed.

Answer Choice (D) This is descriptively accurate. But it’s not a flaw. The issue at hand has to do with a repetition of beliefs that ignores evidence and implies causation illicitly. Statistical evidence is not a flaw because statistics are not relevant to the kind of flawed support the therapist’s argument contains.

Answer Choice (E) This is descriptively accurate, but it’s not the flaw. Remember, the therapist is only talking about patients who receive and don’t respond to treatment. Everything else is irrelevant to the argument.


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Here we have a flaw question, which we know from the question stem: The reasoning in the argument is most valid to the criticism that…” Right away we know our correct answer has to do two things: be descriptively accurate, and describe the flaw of the stimulus. We also know what the wrong answers will do - describe reasoning flaws we’ve seen before, but don’t like up with our stimulus. Once we have a clear understanding of the question’s objective, we can proceed into structural analysis of the stimulus.

The argument begins by telling us about an illusion. Already, our author doesn’t like the sound of something! The speaker states it is incorrect robot inventions will liberate humans from hazardous and demeaning work. We should remind ourselves how these modifiers limit the subset of “work” we are dealing with. The author follows by telling us the reasoning behind this claim is that engineers would be using cheap labor, thus (and here is where we get to our conclusion!) that robots will be a substitute rather than a solution to the problem of working these meaningful positions. In short, our author points out the supposed solution to having these undesirable jobs will just put people into a different job that is also undesirable.

For an argument to be valid, the truth of the premises must guarantee the truth of the conclusion. The speaker takes a very specific position by telling us that we are substituting one thing for another. If our conclusion says these things are a direct swap – makes literally no difference – that pursuing the two types of work will still produce the same amount of demeaning labor tasks.

Answer Choice (A) This is descriptively accurate, but not the problem with the reasoning in our stimulus. Answer choice (A) points out a specific field of jobs that would be affected by robot technology. While our argument fails to address this consideration, it is still not the overall problem with the argument’s structure. The trend of jobs being eliminated with or without robots does not point to the terminology assumptions being made in our stimulus.

Answer Choice (B) This is a Circular Reasoning answer choice. By saying our argument “assumes what it sets out to prove,” the answer choice is suggesting the argument confirms the conclusion because the conclusion exists. In the context of our argument the author would have to say “this work substitutes a new demeaning type of work because it substitutes a new demeaning type of work.” This is a common answer choice in flaw questions that we can quickly identify.

Answer Choice (C) This answer choice is descriptively accurate, but not the problem with the reasoning in our stimulus. It is true that our speaker does not explain if the engineers consider their own work to be demeaning – but who cares? What the engineers of this project think does not point out the definition problem we see in the stimulus.

Answer Choice (D) This is not descriptively accurate. We definitely do not see an appeal to fear in the argument. Maybe if the speaker told us humans are afraid to perform demeaning work, but we don’t see any clear connection to our stimulus in this answer choice.

Correct Answer Choice (E) This is exactly what we are looking for! This descriptively accurate answer choice correctly points out what our argument fails to consider; that jobs before and after robot technology do not see the same levels of hazardous positions being worked. If our robot technology jobs are a tad bit on the hazardous and demeaning side, that does not change the fact they could still be way better than the jobs humans were dealing with before.


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The Industrial Revolution decreased the value that society conferred on physical labor because it enabled unskilled workers to quickly produce goods that formerly took skilled craftspeople long periods of time to produce. Clearly, our most important intellectual skills will similarly be devalued by electronic data-processing technology. Computations that once took skilled mathematicians a long time to perform can now be quickly performed by moderately well-trained high school students using computers.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author hypothesizes that the most important intellectual skills in society will be devalued by new technology. This is because computations that used to take experts a long time to complete can now be performed by high school students on computers. The author also draws an analogy to the Industrial Revolution, where technology decreased the value of certain skills due to rapid production.

Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that computational skills mentioned *are* some of the most “intellectual skills” in society.

A
Much industrial machinery is now designed and built with the aid of computers.
It does not matter who/what designs industrial machinery. This argument is focused on the development of new technologies devaluing highly prized skills
B
Before electronic data-processing technology, improvements in mathematical techniques reduced the amount of time it took to perform computations.
While this suggests that there were past ways to speed up computations, it does not address whether prized intellectual skills will be devalued.
C
On average, skilled mathematicians tend to be much younger when they are in their most productive years than are skilled craftspeople.
It does not matter *when* skilled mathematicians are in their prime. This claim about age does not impact the argument’s reasoning at all
D
The intellectual skills that society values most highly are not computational ones.
This directly challenges the author’s assumption that computational skills are among the most valued intellectual skills. If this is false, the second premise is severely weakened.
E
Electronic data-processing technology has enabled people to perform some tasks that previously could not be performed at all.
While this showcases the benefit of technology, it does not address whether valued skills will be devalued.

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