This is a Must Be True, Except question.
Four answers must be true on the basis of the information in the stimulus. The correct answer could be false.
The stimulus tells us that wildlife experts are adding lime to water to counteract the harmful effects of acid rain. How exactly does lime help? First, it neutralizes acid and thus prevents some damage. Second, it also helps to restore the health of some lakes where life has already been damaged by acid. Note the causal language, not that this affects the correct answer.
Next, specific details about this treatment. If a lake is treated with lime, this treatment must be periodic. That’s a conditional claim. Why? Because water in the lake is constantly being replaced and that has the effect of carrying away whatever lime we put in there. That’s a causal claim. How periodically? That we don't know. But we are told that if a lake's water is replaced more than once every six months, then we're not going to use lime because it's too expensive. That's another conditional claim followed with a causal explanation. This makes sense because the more frequently water in the lake is replaced, the more frequently we have to add lime to it. The lakes where the water is being replaced more than once every six months are apparently too expensive.
Answer Choice (A) says if the lake is a candidate for liming, its water is replaced every six months or less often. This must be true. This is simply the contrapositive of the last statement in the stimulus. Note that negation of “more often than once every six months” is “once every six months or less frequently.”
Answer Choice (B) says in some lakes, if liming is to be successful over the long term in counteracting the harmful effects of acid rain, liming must be repeated at intervals. This also must be true for it is simply a restatement of a conditional from the stimulus. The stimulus states lakes in which lime is used must be treated “periodically,” which just means “repeated at intervals.”
Correct Answer Choice (C) states unlimed lakes in which the water is replaced frequently are less likely to be harmed by acid rain than those lakes in which water is replaced infrequently. This is simply an appeal to our common sense. It is entirely unsupported by the information in the stimulus and therefore could be false. We know from the stimulus that acid rain damages lakes. We also know that adding lime helps to protect and restore those lakes. (C), however, talks about unlimed lakes. It tries to compare two different kinds of unlimed lakes, one where the water is replaced frequently versus the other where the water is replaced infrequently. (C) says the former is less likely to be harmed by acid rain. Again, no information above supports this statement. But our common sense wants to say this is true because we think that if water gets replaced, it should carry the acid away as well, which should be better for the health of the lake. That sounds reasonable and it may in fact be true in the world. But that is irrelevant. The question stem asked for valid support from the statements in the stimulus.
Answer Choice (D) says liming can be effective even if it is used after some life in a lake has been killed by acid rain. This must be true. It is simply what it means to “restore the health of some lakes where life has already been harmed by acidification.”
Answer Choice (E) says if a lake's water is replaced frequently, it may not be economical to attack the effects of acid rain there by liming. This also must be true. Depending on how frequently, it may in fact not be economical. And we know exactly how frequently because the stimulus tells us: more than once every six months.
This is an Inference question.
The question stem says “properly inferred” from the sociologist's perspective. Inference from others' perspective is a question type that we see more often in RC.
The stimulus starts by telling us what rational choice theory says about what causes support for political parties. It says that popular support for political parties is caused by individual voters making deliberate decisions to support those parties whose policies they believe will economically benefit them. In other words, individuals' beliefs about the economic consequences of a particular party's policies cause those individuals to support those parties. This causal relationship is what is meant by “sufficiently explained.”
But the sociologists don't agree. They oppose rational choice theory on the premise that a complex phenomenon like the rise of a political organization or party cannot be caused by a simple phenomenon.
What is this “simple phenomenon”? It must be the individual voters making economic decisions to support political parties, which implies that it must not be a complex phenomenon. This is what Correct Answer Choice (A) says. Sociologists believe that economically motivated decisions by voters need not constitute a complex phenomenon. We are getting hints of an NA question. Note how (A) could have stated this much more strongly. Economically motivated decisions by voters constitute a simple phenomenon. That would have been correct as well. But the test writers took it one step further and stated an inference of that statement.
Answer Choice (B) says a complex phenomenon generally will have many complex causes. This is unsupported. The sociologists only said that a complex phenomenon cannot be caused by a simple phenomenon. This leaves open several possibilities. Perhaps they believe that a complex phenomenon can be caused by many simple phenomena. Or perhaps they believe that a complex phenomenon can be caused by a single complex phenomenon. We’d have to dismiss those alternatives without warrant in order to arrive at (B).
Answer Choice (C) says political phenomena often have religious and cultural causes as well as economic ones. This is even more unsupported. Note the same reasoning in (B) applies here. Additionally, (C) draws an inference to religious and cultural causes on the basis of nothing.
Answer Choice (D) says popular support for political parties is never a complex phenomenon. This is anti-supported. The sociologist called the rise of a political organization a complex phenomenon. Within the context of the stimulus, the rise of the political organization is synonymous with popular support for a political party.
Answer Choice (E) says the decisions of individual voters are not usually influenced by their beliefs about which policies will yield them the greatest economic advantage. This is unsupported. The stimulus talks about a narrow political relationship. It examines the causes of the rise of popular political parties. (E) talks about a much broader political relationship, the causes of individual voting decisions. The stimulus has very little to say about what generally causes (influences) or doesn't cause voters to cast their vote one way or another.
This is an Inference question.
The question stem says “properly inferred” from the sociologist's perspective. Inference from others' perspective is a question type that we see more often in RC.
The stimulus starts by telling us what rational choice theory says about what causes support for political parties. It says that popular support for political parties is caused by individual voters making deliberate decisions to support those parties whose policies they believe will economically benefit them. In other words, individuals' beliefs about the economic consequences of a particular party's policies cause those individuals to support those parties. This causal relationship is what is meant by “sufficiently explained.”
But the sociologists don't agree. They oppose rational choice theory on the premise that a complex phenomenon like the rise of a political organization or party cannot be caused by a simple phenomenon.
What is this “simple phenomenon”? It must be the individual voters making economic decisions to support political parties, which implies that it must not be a complex phenomenon. This is what Correct Answer Choice (A) says. Sociologists believe that economically motivated decisions by voters need not constitute a complex phenomenon. We are getting hints of an NA question. Note how (A) could have stated this much more strongly. Economically motivated decisions by voters constitute a simple phenomenon. That would have been correct as well. But the test writers took it one step further and stated an inference of that statement.
Answer Choice (B) says a complex phenomenon generally will have many complex causes. This is unsupported. The sociologists only said that a complex phenomenon cannot be caused by a simple phenomenon. This leaves open several possibilities. Perhaps they believe that a complex phenomenon can be caused by many simple phenomena. Or perhaps they believe that a complex phenomenon can be caused by a single complex phenomenon. We’d have to dismiss those alternatives without warrant in order to arrive at (B).
Answer Choice (C) says political phenomena often have religious and cultural causes as well as economic ones. This is even more unsupported. Note the same reasoning in (B) applies here. Additionally, (C) draws an inference to religious and cultural causes on the basis of nothing.
Answer Choice (D) says popular support for political parties is never a complex phenomenon. This is anti-supported. The sociologist called the rise of a political organization a complex phenomenon. Within the context of the stimulus, the rise of the political organization is synonymous with popular support for a political party.
Answer Choice (E) says the decisions of individual voters are not usually influenced by their beliefs about which policies will yield them the greatest economic advantage. This is unsupported. The stimulus talks about a narrow political relationship. It examines the causes of the rise of popular political parties. (E) talks about a much broader political relationship, the causes of individual voting decisions. The stimulus has very little to say about what generally causes (influences) or doesn't cause voters to cast their vote one way or another.
This is an Inference question.
The question stem says “properly inferred.” This is a challenging question because there is so much information in the stimulus that is all connected. That can easily induce panic as you scramble to draw all the connections and valid inferences. Strategically, you shouldn't do that. The more connected information a stimulus contains, the more valid inferences there are to be drawn, the less you are able to anticipate the correct answer choice. In stimuli like those, POE is the better approach.
The first line in the stimulus about the study of primates being interesting is the only irrelevant fact. Everything else is fair game.
Only primates have opposable thumbs. Lemurs are lower primates (a subset of primates.) And lemurs are the only primates indigenous to Madagascar. Some species of lemurs are the only living lower primates that are diurnal. They go ahead and define diurnal for us but the answer choices never swapped out the term for its definition so we don't need to pay attention to it. Finally, all higher primates (a subset of primates) are thought to have evolved from a single diurnal species of lower primates.
Lots of information. Let’s POE.
The last piece of information is what sets up the trap in Answer Choice (A). It says that the chimpanzee, a higher primate, evolved from the lemur. This is not a proper inference. This is unsupported. All we can say is that the chimpanzee, being a higher primate, is thought to have evolved from a single diurnal species of lower primates. Which one, though? Must it be the lemur because the lemur is a diurnal species of lower primates and it is the only living one? No. Being alive isn’t required. We’re talking about evolution here. Most ancestor species are extinct. There may well have been other extinct, diurnal species of lower primates. One of those extinct species may well be the evolutionary starting point of all higher primates.
Correct Answer Choice (B) says no primates indigenous to Madagascar are diurnal higher primates. We can transform this into the following logically equivalent claim: all primates indigenous to Madagascar are not diurnal higher primates. This must be true. The stimulus says that the only primates indigenous to Madagascar are lemurs and that lemurs are all lower primates. It is implied that lower primates cannot be higher primates, diurnal or otherwise. This is the conditional chain: prim-indig-M → lemur → low-prim
Answer Choice (C) says no higher primate is nocturnal. This is unsupported. We simply have no idea if higher primates are nocturnal or diurnal or anything else. The only piece of information we have about higher primates is that they are thought to have evolved from a single diurnal species of lower primates.
Answer Choice (D) says there are some lemurs without opposable thumbs. This is unsupported. The stimulus says only primates have opposable thumbs. That means if something is not a primate then it doesn't have opposable thumbs. But lemurs are primates. Sufficient condition failed, rule goes away.
Answer Choice (E) says there are no nocturnal lemurs. This is unsupported. The stimulus tells us that some species of lemurs are diurnal. Maybe all species of lemurs are diurnal, maybe not.
This is an Inference question.
The question stem says “properly inferred.” This is a challenging question because there is so much information in the stimulus that is all connected. That can easily induce panic as you scramble to draw all the connections and valid inferences. Strategically, you shouldn't do that. The more connected information a stimulus contains, the more valid inferences there are to be drawn, the less you are able to anticipate the correct answer choice. In stimuli like those, POE is the better approach.
The first line in the stimulus about the study of primates being interesting is the only irrelevant fact. Everything else is fair game.
Only primates have opposable thumbs. Lemurs are lower primates (a subset of primates.) And lemurs are the only primates indigenous to Madagascar. Some species of lemurs are the only living lower primates that are diurnal. They go ahead and define diurnal for us but the answer choices never swapped out the term for its definition so we don't need to pay attention to it. Finally, all higher primates (a subset of primates) are thought to have evolved from a single diurnal species of lower primates.
Lots of information. Let’s POE.
The last piece of information is what sets up the trap in Answer Choice (A). It says that the chimpanzee, a higher primate, evolved from the lemur. This is not a proper inference. This is unsupported. All we can say is that the chimpanzee, being a higher primate, is thought to have evolved from a single diurnal species of lower primates. Which one, though? Must it be the lemur because the lemur is a diurnal species of lower primates and it is the only living one? No. Being alive isn’t required. We’re talking about evolution here. Most ancestor species are extinct. There may well have been other extinct, diurnal species of lower primates. One of those extinct species may well be the evolutionary starting point of all higher primates.
Correct Answer Choice (B) says no primates indigenous to Madagascar are diurnal higher primates. We can transform this into the following logically equivalent claim: all primates indigenous to Madagascar are not diurnal higher primates. This must be true. The stimulus says that the only primates indigenous to Madagascar are lemurs and that lemurs are all lower primates. It is implied that lower primates cannot be higher primates, diurnal or otherwise. This is the conditional chain: prim-indig-M → lemur → low-prim
Answer Choice (C) says no higher primate is nocturnal. This is unsupported. We simply have no idea if higher primates are nocturnal or diurnal or anything else. The only piece of information we have about higher primates is that they are thought to have evolved from a single diurnal species of lower primates.
Answer Choice (D) says there are some lemurs without opposable thumbs. This is unsupported. The stimulus says only primates have opposable thumbs. That means if something is not a primate then it doesn't have opposable thumbs. But lemurs are primates. Sufficient condition failed, rule goes away.
Answer Choice (E) says there are no nocturnal lemurs. This is unsupported. The stimulus tells us that some species of lemurs are diurnal. Maybe all species of lemurs are diurnal, maybe not.
This is a Weaken question.
The author concludes that the government should require drug companies to notify consumers of all known drug-related interactions. Why? Because even relatively minor drug-related interactions can still be harmful to patients. That’s the major premise. Why should we believe this? The author provides an example: aspirin and fruit juice interact to render the aspirin ineffective. People who are unaware of this end up taking an incorrect dosage.
The logic of this argument is cost-benefit analysis. We consider a cost and from that consideration draw a conclusion about what should be done. As with all cost-benefit analysis questions, there are other factors to consider.
Correct Answer Choice (A) provides a counterbalancing consideration. It says that providing information on minor drug-related interactions would detract from a patient’s attention to serious interactions. That seems like a pretty compelling cost which weighs against the stated benefit in the stimulus. In fact, it seems like it outweighs the benefit, though that isn’t required in order to weaken the reasoning.
Answer Choice (B) says many drugs have fewer documented drug-related interactions than does aspirin. This is irrelevant. The argument used aspirin merely as an example. It never assumed that aspirin was the drug with the least documented interactions.
Answer Choice (C) says providing information about all drug-related interactions would result in only negligible price increases for consumers. This is a consideration on the benefit side of the scales. This wouldn’t weaken the argument.
Answer Choice (D) says current research is such that many drug-related interactions have not yet been identified. Of course not. Why should we expect we’d have completely identified all the interactions? But the mere fact that there are interactions that we don’t yet know about weighs on neither side of the scales. If the concern here is that there may be some as yet unidentified interaction X that’s really dangerous, what can we do? We certainly can’t print X on the label because we don’t know about X. That’s what it means to be unidentified.
Answer Choice (E) says pharmacists usually draw patients’ attention to printed warnings that are provided with drugs. This also wouldn’t sway the argument in either direction. Pharmacists are merely acting as a highlighter, reinforcing the already printed warnings. We’re talking about whether to add additional warnings onto the label.
The author also assumes that the inclusion of minor drug-related interactions will not distract/outweigh the importance of the major ones, thereby causing more harm than good.
A
Providing information on minor drug-related interactions would detract from a patient’s attention to serious interactions.
B
Many drugs have fewer documented drug-related interactions than does aspirin.
C
Providing information about all drug-related interactions would result in only negligible price increases for consumers.
D
Current research is such that many drug-related interactions have not yet been identified.
E
Pharmacists usually draw patients’ attention to printed warnings that are provided with drugs.
This is a Main Conclusion question.
This argument is pretty straightforward though quite strange in terms of its content.
The stimulus starts with the conclusion. It says the widespread use of encryption software will bring the writing of biographical history virtually to an end. First, how strange the content is, right? It's just a weird statement that encryption software's wide adoption will bring an end to biographies. Second, the presence of an interjected phrase to explain what encryption software means adds complexity to the grammar and is totally unnecessary. I’m talking about the stuff between the commas. What is encryption software? It makes electronic documents accessible by password only. Seriously? Who didn't already know that?
Anyway, we should rightly be wondering why encryption software would result in the extinction of the biography. The rest of the stimulus makes an attempt to support the conclusion. It’s a terrible argument but we don't need to go there.
We are told that public figures' private correspondences and diaries are intended to be confidential when they are written, but later they become biographers' principal sources. But in the future, most of those private correspondences and diaries will be encrypted, which means that the most interesting revealing material will be unavailable to biographers, unless the biographers have the passwords.
So that's the argument. One assumption is that biographers will not have passwords and therefore will not gain access to the most interesting source material. And that's why the author concludes there will be no more biographies. I am really resisting the urge to tear this argument apart because it's so awful. But again we don't need to because this isn’t a Weaken or Strengthen question. So, let's look at the answers.
Answer Choice (A) is a premise of the argument.
Correct Answer Choice (B) accurately paraphrases the conclusion. “Decline significantly or cease” is a good paraphrase for “bring...virtually to an end.”
Answer Choice (C) is an assumption that the argument makes that we noted above.
Answer Choice (D) is supported by information from the stimulus. In other words, if this were an MSS question, then this would be a correct answer, on the back of a fairly reasonable assumption that the private correspondences and diaries are the most interesting and revealing material.
Answer Choice (E) is also an assumption that the argument makes, as noted in (D) above. This is a more subtle assumption than what (C) pointed out.
A
In the future, most private correspondence and diaries of public figures will be stored as encrypted text.
B
The widespread use of encryption software will cause the writing of biographical history to decline significantly or cease.
C
Historians will probably not have access to much of the private correspondence and diaries of public figures in the future.
D
In the future, biographers’ access to the most interesting, revealing material will be determined by their knowledge of the necessary passwords.
E
Public figures’ private correspondence and diaries are the most interesting and revealing sources for the writing of biographical history.
This is a Fill in the Blank question.
The stimulus provides additional information about what we’re supposed to fill the blank in with. We’re looking for a conclusion. The blank sits in a sentence structured with the word “since.” “Since something, blank.” The “something” is the premise and the “blank” is the conclusion. That means this is like a type of MSS question where information in the stimulus builds up to support a conclusion hiding in the answer choices.
The sociologist starts her argument by presenting OPA. The other people are anthropologists. They claim that cultures can most effectively respond to the threat of cultural decay by replacing or abandoning many of their traditions so that other traditions may endure. With the word “but,” the author switches from context to her argument. With the word “since,” she introduces her first and only premise that each tradition in a culture is essential to that culture's identity. Therefore, OPA’s strategy is… fill in the blank.
Before looking at the answers, we should have a general anticipation of where the argument is going. We can do this because the entire stimulus is building towards something. So we need to understand how OPA relates to the author's premise. What was OPA’s strategy again? It tells a culture attempting to stave off decay to replace its traditions with other traditions. But the author says each tradition is essential to a culture. What, then, does it mean to replace components that are essential to a culture?
Correct Answer Choice (B) tells us. It means that OPA's strategy will achieve the opposite of its intended effect. It will ensure the elimination of a culture rather than prevent its decay.
You might want to object that cultures could survive the elimination of their traditions even if each of its traditions is essential. But that misses the point. We're not actually trying to resolve the question of whether this argument commits a part-to-whole flaw. We're not actually trying to figure out whether a culture is more than just the collection of its traditions. Rather, we are only trying to understand the argument from the author's perspective. We are only trying to figure out where her premise is leading. So even if you don't think (B) provides a strongly supported conclusion by some absolute standard, you must recognize nonetheless that it most logically completes the argument. That’s a relative standard. Look at the other four answers and you’ll see that they are terrible.
Answer Choice (A) says OPA's strategy can save those cultures capable of reflecting on their customs and envisioning alternatives. This is wrong because it's pretty much the opposite of what the author actually wants to conclude. Were this the conclusion the author was trying to argue for, her premise would make no sense. Why point out that each tradition is essential to a culture? OPA just said that these traditions are to be eliminated. You’d do better to point out that these traditions are not essential.
Answer Choice (D) says OPA's strategy constitutes the most effective response to the threat of cultural decay. This is very similar to (A).
Answer Choice (E) says OPA's strategy can succeed if adopted by cultures whose traditions have been adopted only recently. First, this is in the wrong direction as we've already established with (A) and (D). The author isn't trying to argue that OPA's strategy is conducive to success. Second, there's nothing in the argument that suggests the timing of when a tradition was adopted is relevant. What is the important difference between a recent tradition versus an ancient tradition? Nothing, as far as the stimulus is concerned.
Answer Choice (C) says OPA's strategy can be implemented by all and only those cultures studied by anthropologists. This is a bizarre claim in and of itself. This claim acts like there's something special about being studied by anthropologists. Like if a culture was ignored by anthropologists then it's limited in what it can do for itself, whereas if a culture was noticed by anthropologists then the strategies it can implement expand. That's weird. You would think that what a culture can or cannot do doesn't depend at all on whether it's being studied by anthropologists.