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Took me more time than it should have to pick C. This really shows the importance of careful diagramming and attention to structure.

I also chose B but this helped improve my thought process, thank you!

I appreciate the responses, I feel more confident now with the structure of this argument! Thank you guys !!!

I was between D and E. I picked D because I thought that a low unemployment rate would strengthen the conclusion by suggesting that it would be difficult to hire new staff -- thus blocking the alternate explanation that they could hire new people.

In retrospect, this is too strong of an assumption to make (that low unemployment causing people to move in = harder to hire.) Because a low unemployment rate does not tell you if it is harder to hire specifically for municipal jobs. Moreover, to say that a lot of new people were motivated to move in because of low unemployment does not logically imply anything about the current unemployment rate; so you can't even draw the assumption that low unemployment = harder to hire. Consequently, it does not even really relate at all to the supplied premise of Most City Budgets not allowing new hiring.

The more I think about it, the worse D appears. D is conflating small cities with cities in general, which is almost always a red flag. There could also be other reasons, and so what if that is a reason for why people move to cities in general? It doesn't necessarily have to apply to small cities.

Mentioning hatchlings seems designed to bait you into make that assumption.

Should ecological problems be considered environmental problems inherently? If this is not a common-sense assumption, I believe D should be given greater consideration #help

The "why" test on this one seems less helpful in distinguishing between the conclusion and major premise/sub conclusion, but simplifying the terms and illustrating it helped me, and I did get this one right:

P1: we're comforted by rhythmic sounds of the heartbeat; this supports P2
P2/sub conclusion: therefore we're drawn to rhythmic sounds; this supports MC
MC: therefore we like music with rhythmic sounds

Flipping the MC and P2 makes less sense: we like music with rhythmic sounds, therefore we're drawn to rhythmic sounds.

Hope this helps.

SAME!!!!!

this wasnt very helpful

Minus social credit points for you.

No. I think that's a total waste of time. The question stem will tell you whether you need to go back into the passage. Just make a first read with a strong eye towards author's opinion and overall organization/relationship between paragraphs. Then, rely on the questions to tell you when and where you need to refer back to the passage to pick out details.

The way I thought about it is this.

Main Conclusion of Argument: Dioxin is unlikely to be the cause of the fish's reproductive abnormality

Premises: Fish recover hormones quickly when the mill shuts down, and dioxin decomposes slowly.

In Lay Terms: The person making the argument is saying that Dioxin cannot be the cause because the dioxin does not go away quickly, and the fish's hormones recover quickly after the mill shuts down (ceases to produce dioxin). They are basically saying, if the mill shuts down, and the dioxin sticks around in the water, then how come the fish are able to recover so fast? It must be that Dioxin is not the cause!

Answer choice C is saying that it could be the cause, and it destroys the argument completely by saying that the Dioxin is simply traveling away.