We’ve got an RRE question which we can identify from the question stem: Which one of the following, if true, would most help to resolve the apparent discrepancy in the committee’s position?
The discrepancy in the stimulus appears fairly straightforward: natural grass causes more injuries than turf, natural grass costs more than turf, and yet, the committee recommends using natural grass over turf. What’s going on here?!?
Whenever you are given conditions like these on an RRE question, start to interrogate what they may be leaving out. This is particularly true when it comes to quantitative comparisons, like “turf causes fewer injuries than grass.” What does fewer tell us? Well it tells us something about the number of injuries caused by both types of field. It’s quantitative, meaning it pertains only to the number of injuries. It’s important not to confuse that with meaning it’s qualitative. It doesn’t tell us anything about the quality of the injuries. What if on average, there are 10 injuries per year on a grass field as opposed to 5 on a turf field, but by and large the injuries on grass are superficial cuts and bruises whereas the injuries on turf require trips to the hospital? Well suddenly the number of injuries per year is looking a whole lot less important, right?
Now that we’ve identified a potential scenario that would resolve this discrepancy, let’s turn to the answer choices:
Answer Choice (A) This is consistent with our facts but does nothing to resolve the paradox. Just because grass costs more than turf doesn’t mean that turf doesn’t cost anything at all. If the turf required extensive maintenance, who's to say that a grass field wouldn’t average even higher yearly maintenance costs?
Correct Answer Choice (B) This is our proposed resolution. Turf may cause less injuries, but they are more severe and cost more money. This goes even further than we did! Not only does it speak to the quality of the injuries, it undercuts the importance of the maintenance costs by suggesting that at least some of the money saved on turf maintenance costs would be offset by an increase in spending on injury management. It does everything we need it to, and is therefore, correct!
Answer Choice (C) This does nothing to resolve our paradox. The aesthetic difference between fields is not addressed anywhere in our stimulus and this is completely unrelated to the issues we are trying to reconcile.
Answer Choice (D) This is telling us what types of maintenance both field types require but it doesn’t matter. We know that grass costs more than turf to maintain but we don’t really care about how they are maintained.
Answer Choice (E) While the preferences of players may be worth considering in real life, we have no reason to think about them for this question as it does nothing to resolve our apparent paradox. We need to reconcile the higher cost and more injuries caused by natural grass with the committee’s recommendation to use natural grass. Athlete preference doesn’t do anything to resolve this discrepancy.
Crockett: I disagree. Derma-35 in fact causes inflammation, but in citing only the side effect of blemishes as the justification for its decision, the council rightly acknowledged that blemishes are a legitimate health concern.
A
Derma-35 should remain on the market
B
blemishes are sometimes caused by inflammation
C
the council based its decision on the threat of inflammation or on the threat of blemishes
D
the council gave an adequate reason for its decision to recall Derma-35
E
inflammation is a serious health threat
The question stem reads: Which one of the following logically follows from the literary historian's claims? This is a Must Be True question.
The stimulus begins with context by stating that Shakespeare could have written love poems attributed to him. We then turn to the author's argument with the indicator "but." The author claims that the dramas attributed to him "evince such insight into the minds of powerful rulers that they could only have been written by one who had spent much time among them." In other words, because the dramas provided such an accurate description of rulers' mental states, the dramas must have been written by someone who had actually been around to witness rulers themselves. The author has introduced "being around rulers" as a Necessary Condition for being the author of the plays. She then says that Francis Bacon spent time with rulers, but Shakespeare had not. Can we draw a valid inference? We can! Shakespeare didn't spend time with rulers, which means he could not have written the plays. Why? Because spending time with rulers is required for being the dramas' author. But if Shakespeare didn't write the plays, who did? The author says Mr. Bacon spent time around rulers, which means he satisfies the Necessary Conditions for being the author. However, by now, you know that Necessary does not mean Sufficient. So while Mr. Bacon may be the author, we don't know for sure. There might be other Necessary Conditions we need to meet to become an author of the dramas that Bacon fails to satisfy.
In an MBT Question, we hunt for any valid inferences we draw in the answer choices. We synthesized the author's claims and drew the valid inference that Shakespeare did not write the dramas and Francis Bacon possibly wrote the dramas.
We can find the inference that Shakespeare did not write the dramas in Correct Answer Choice (E), which also restates the context that Shakespeare could have written love poetry.
Answer Choice (A) makes a mistake by claiming that Bacon wrote the dramas attributed to Shakespeare. That could be true, but we do not know if he actually did. Additionally, (A) claims that Bacon did not write the love poetry attributed to Shakespeare. Why not? We have no rules or conditions about the author of love poetry, only that Shakespeare could have been the author. So Bacon is still in the running for that.
Answer Choice (B) makes the same mistake as (A) by claiming that Bacon wrote the Dramas. So for that reason, it is out. Additionally, we know nothing about the author of the love poems, so we can rule out (B) for the claim that Bacon wrote love poetry.
Answer Choice (C) makes the valid inference that Shakespeare did not write the dramas but makes the invalid inference that he did not write the poems. The author directly states that Shakespeare could have written the poems in the context so (C) is out.
Answer Choice (D) claims that one person could not have written both the love poems and the dramas. If we knew Shakespeare wrote the poems, then (D) would be a valid inference. However, we do not know that Shakespeare wrote the poems, only that he could have wrote the poems. So there is still the possibility that someone besides Shakespeare wrote love poems and dramas.
Philosopher: Effective tests have recently been developed to predict fatal diseases having a largely genetic basis. Now, for the first time, a person can be warned well in advance of the possibility of such life-threatening conditions. However, medicine is not yet able to prevent most such conditions. Simply being informed that one will get a disease that is both fatal and incurable can itself be quite harmful to some people. This raises the question of whether such “early warning” tests should be made available at all.
Summary
The philosopher says that we can now effectively test people for some genetically-based deadly diseases, so we can warn people in advance if they’re at risk. Unfortunately, we can’t prevent most of these conditions yet. What’s more, learning that you will get a deadly and unpreventable disease can be psychologically harmful. So, the philosopher wonders whether we should use these tests at all.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
The philosopher’s claims support these principles:
Having more knowledge of one’s future health risks is not always beneficial for health.
If new medical tests risk causing people harm while not offering the possibility of a cure, it may be best not to conduct the tests.
Developments in medicine can lead to questions of how and when they should be used.
A
The advance of medicine fails to provide solutions to every problem.
This is not supported. While this claim is factually true, it’s not the focus of the philosopher’s claims. The philosopher is trying to indicate a question raised by medical advancement, not make the point that medicine can’t solve all problems.
B
The advance of medicine creates new contexts in which ethical dilemmas can arise.
This is strongly supported. The philosopher discusses new testing to raise the question of whether or not the new tests should be offered at all. In other words, whether or not to offer the tests is an ethical dilemma that arises due to an advance in medicine.
C
Medical technologies continue to advance, increasing our knowledge and understanding of disease.
This is not supported. The point of the philosopher’s claims isn’t to show that medical technology is advancing over a sustained period of time, the point is about new questions that are arising in medicine.
D
The more we come to learn, the more we realize how little we know.
This is not supported. The philosopher doesn’t indicate anything about realizing how little we know, and there’s no part of the stimulus that suggests a gap in our knowledge being revealed.
E
The advance of technology is of questionable value.
This is not supported. The philosopher doesn’t bring into question the value of technology in general, or even the value of this new kind of testing. Just saying that we maybe shouldn’t use a technology for now doesn’t mean it’s without value.
Futurist: Artists in the next century will be supported largely by private patrons. Because these patrons will almost invariably be supporters of the social order—whatever it happens to be at the time—art in the next century will rarely express social and political doctrines that are perceived to be subversive of that social order.
Summarize Argument
The futurist concludes that art in the next century won’t be subversive. This is because artists in the next century will be supported by private patrons who in turn support the status quo.
Notable Assumptions
The futurist assumes that patrons won’t fund art that they find disagreeable from a social or political standpoint.
A
Art patrons tend not to support artists whose art expresses social and political views that are in opposition to their own.
Patrons won’t fund artist who create subversive art. Hence why artists likely won’t be making subversive art in the future, where artists are supported by patrons.
B
Art patrons tend to be more interested in formal artistic problems than in the social and political issues of their time.
This weakens the futurist’s argument. If patrons mostly care about formal artistic problems, then they wouldn’t mind funding subversive artists.
C
Artists are as prone to attack the contemporary social and political order in their work as they are to defend it.
We don’t care about what artists do now. We care about what they’ll do in the future.
D
Artists tend to become more critical of contemporary social and political arrangements after they are freed of their dependency on private patrons.
We need to know that most artists aren’t critical at all of social and political arrangements when they have a patron. This only tells us artists get more critical once they’re independent from patrons.
E
Art patrons tend to oppose all social change except that initiated by artists.
This weakens the futurist’s argument. In the future, the futurist doesn’t think art patrons won’t be supporting social change at all. Hence why they won’t be supporting subversive artists.
University budget committee: Athletes experience fewer injuries on artificial-turf athletic fields than on natural-grass fields. Additionally, natural-grass fields are more expensive to maintain than fields made of artificial turf. Nevertheless, this committee recommends replacing the university’s current artificial-turf field with a natural-grass field.
"Surprising" Phenomenon
Why does the committee recommend replacing artificial-turf with natural-grass, even though fewer athletes are injured on artificial-turf, and artificial-turf is cheaper to maintain?
Objective
The correct answer should differentiate artificial-turf and natural-grass in a way that’s negative for artificial-turf or positive for natural-grass. The correct answer should relate to money and costs, because the recommendation is made by the budget committee.
A
The university’s current artificial-turf athletic field has required extensive maintenance since its original installation.
We already know that natural-grass is more expensive to maintain. So even if artificial-turf has required extensive maintenance, that requirement would continue, in a more costly way, with a natural-turf field.
B
Most injuries sustained on artificial-turf fields take longer to heal and require more expensive physical therapy than do injuries sustained on natural-grass fields.
This gives us something negative about artificial-turf fields compared to natural-grass fields. This helps explain why the budget committee might have recommended switching to natural-grass.
C
It is difficult for spectators at athletic events to determine whether an athletic field is artificial turf or natural grass.
This doesn’t differentiate between artificial-turf and natural-grass, and it doesn’t tell me something worse about artificial-turf compared to natural-grass.
D
Maintaining artificial-turf fields involves the occasional replacement of damaged sections of turf, whereas natural-grass fields require daily watering and periodic fertilization.
We already know that natural-grass fields are more expensive to maintain. This just gives us additional details on the extra maintenance required for natural-grass.
E
Athletes who have spent most of their playing time on natural-grass fields generally prefer not to play on artificial-turf fields.
It’s not clear that athlete preference is something that would motivate a recommendation of the budget committee. But even if it is, we have no reason to think athletes at the university have spent most of their time on natural-grass fields.