This is a pseudo-sufficient assumption question, as the question stem indicates: Which one of the following principles, if established, would most help to justify a doctor’s decision to use drug Z rather than drug Y when treating a patient? Then question stem gives us the information that we need to justify. Let’s see how this appears in the stimulus.
We have information on two studies conducted for drugs Y and Z to prevent blood clots from developing after a heart attack. Y is not more effective than Z (which costs more); but Z could be slightly more efficient or is just as effective as Y. The people who made Z don’t contest these claims but they add that the study does not reveal the added benefits of Z. We’re then told because it’s not clear that Z is more effective than Y, there is no medical reason to prescribe it over Y. Our question stem is asking us to pick the answer that most justifies the reasoning of a doctor who wants to use drug Z (more expensive and potentially slight more effective) over drug Y. A general rule would take evidence from the argument (have it more readily in stock or could be more effective) and put take in the sufficient condition in a conditional with our conclusion in the necessary condition: If they have it in stock/it could be more effective, doctors should prescribe it. Remember that PSAr answer choices do not need to render the argument valid, just somewhere close to it.
Answer Choice (A) doesn’t justify why a doctor can prescribe Z over Y, it justifies a different situation of what requirements patients have to meet in order to be given a drug. This does not justify.
Answer Choice (B) is also incorrect because we’re not concerned with compensation. Deserving something doesn’t justify their choice of Z over Y.
Answer Choice (C) tells us what we should not take into account but fails to mention how we can justify choosing drug Z over drug Y. This is also out.
Answer Choice (D) doesn’t apply to our situation because the drug company doesn’t criticize the findings! It just adds that the findings failed to mention the benefits.
Correct Answer Choice (E): This answer choice is correct; it takes information from the stimulus (potentially more beneficial) and uses it to justify choosing Z over Y.
As we should be able to tell, this is a most strongly supported question: If under the circumstances described above cars continue to meet emission standards, which one of the following is the most strongly supported inference?
The stimulus tells us about “chlorofluorocarbons”, solvents that are really useful for cleaning electronic sensors in cars. I don’t know about you, but I have no idea what a “chlorofluorocarbon” is, so I’m just going to abbreviate them as CFs. The second sentence begins with the referential phrase these solvents and tells us that CFs have contributed significantly to automaker’s being able to meet emission standards. Unfortunately, for some reason CFs need to be phased out, and of all times right when emission standards are tightening! If we read our question stem carefully, we know we are supposed to add one more premise into this concoction; the cars are going to continue to meet emission standards.
You should always treat a MSS question as being given a set of premises in the stimulus, and your job is to select the conclusion in the answer choices that requires the least amount of assumptions to follow. Let’s see what we end up with:
Answer Choice (A) We need to assume a lot about automakers for this to follow. For all we know they all despise each other and will never cooperate.
Answer Choice (B) This would be sufficient to compensate for the loss of CFs, but it certainly isn’t necessary to do so. For this conclusion to follow from the stimulus, we would have to assume that no other possible solutions are in play. That’s a big assumption.
Answer Choice (C) Similar to B, you can see how this might help meet more stringent emission standards without CFs, but to say that it will happen requires a lot of assumptions. What about all the other ways automakers might meet emission standards?
Answer Choice (D) We’ve been told nothing about whether CFs will be replaced, only that they will be phased out. Maybe they will be phased in favor of a cleaning method that doesn’t involve solvents?
Correct Answer Choice (E) Since emission standards are stricter, and CFs are no longer an option, but cars will continue to meet emission standards, it is safe to assume that something else will make up for the loss of CFs. This answer is essentially the same as B but with way less assumptions since it is much more general; rather than tunneling in on one possible solution, it merely infers that there will be something which does what is needed to replace CFs.
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.
This question stem is a little unusual. If you struggled to identify this as a Necessary Assumption question, think about the conditional function of the “unless.” The answer choice is the condition following the “unless,” so we could negate sufficient to say something like, “If which one of the follow answers is not assumed, then the conclusion cited does not follow.” If we contrapose this, we get, “If the conclusion cited follows, then which answer must be assumed?” This puts the answer choice in the necessary condition of the conditional. So, we know this is a necessary assumption question.
We see that there are a number of inconsistencies in a history book. From this, these scholars conclude that the author must have been drawing from multiple sources.
And that’s it. That’s the whole stimulus. This is a very simple argument: Inconsistencies, therefore multiple sources. Structurally, this is just “A therefore B.” These are very common LSAT arguments, and they have never done the work of tying the relevancy of the premise to the conclusion. And they always fail as arguments for this reason. Does the premise have anything to do with the conclusion? These arguments do not establish that connection. One assumption always necessary for these is “If A then B.” It isn’t a very interesting assumption, but it is necessary. Here, that is “If inconsistencies then multiple sources used.” Notice this is also sufficient. That can cause some alarm, but do not fear. With this particular argument structure, such an assumption will be both sufficient and necessary. They don’t have to give us this exactly, so we will still keep an open mind in the answers, but these arguments are so simplistic, they do not create much opportunity for alternatives.
Answer Choice (A) We don’t care about what authors “generally” do. Maybe they generally ignore discrepancies. Or maybe they generally convey the discrepancies and discuss the reason for the discrepancies with commentary on the likely reliability of their different sources. Who cares what they generally do or why? Not us. We care about what this one particular author actually did on this one particular occasion. Any given generality is welcome to be true, but need not be. If it doesn’t have to be true, it isn’t necessary.
Answer Choice (B) Again, this is just not something we care about. The average reader is welcome to spot these inconsistencies. They are equally welcome to overlook them. We care about the number of sources the author used, and the reader simply has nothing to do with that.
Correct Answer Choice (C) A and B tried to tell us something that does happen. This is telling us something that did not: The author did not use a single source which itself contained the inconsistencies in our author’s book. This has to be true. This is the right answer. If our author did use one source which itself contained the same inconsistencies as the book in question, then these inconsistencies need not result from inconsistencies among multiple sources. It seems quite reasonable that the inconsistencies could have resulted from the same inconsistencies from this one source.
Answer Choice (D) This is wrong for similar reasons as A and B. We do not care one way or the other if our author was aware that inconsistencies could arise. With our without their awareness, the inconsistencies arose. That’s all that really matters here. Their awareness has no bearing on the source of the inconsistencies.
Answer Choice (E) This is wrong for the exact same reason as everything else. In D, the author’s awareness of the possibility of inconsistencies doesn’t matter. Here, the author’s awareness of all the possible source materials doesn’t matter. If there was one book relevant to the subject that they didn’t know about, does that mean anything for our argument relating to the source of the inconsistencies? It does not.
This is a most strongly supported question, since the stem asks: The statements above, if true, most strongly support which one of the following hypotheses?
The stimulus gives us some information about insectivorous plants. These are plants which can trap and digest insects (think Venus flytraps), and we’re told that they can survive in soils that are too poor in minerals for non-insectivorous plants. Interesting! This phenomenon is made even stranger when the next sentence lets us know that insectivorous plants have practically the same mineral requirements! We should infer from this that either the minerals must be coming from somewhere else, or the insectivorous plants are more efficient at getting minerals from poor soil. Our job is to select the answer choice whose hypothesis explains this phenomenon with the least assumptions required. Let’s see what we get!
Answer Choice (A) This doesn’t help our mineral problem, since we still don’t know how having lots of insects around would give the plant its required minerals.
Answer Choice (B) We’ve been told they can survive in these poor soils, but nothing about whether they do particularly well in them. Regardless, this does nothing to explain how they can survive while having the same mineral needs as the plants that can’t survive.
Answer Choice (C) But we’ve been told that the minerals required by the two types of plants are basically the same!
Answer Choice (D) This does nothing to explain our phenomenon, while also making a ton of assumptions. Maybe the areas with poor soil are rarer!
Correct Answer Choice (E) If they can get their minerals from the insects they digest, that would explain the difference in survival ability between them and the plants that don’t eat insects!