This is a strengthening question, as the stem states: Which one of the following principles, if established, most strongly supports the argument?
This is a nice and short stimulus. Our author concludes purely on the basis that cigarette smoking has been found to be a health hazard, all smoking advertisements should be banned. We want a principle that justifies this conclusion about what ought to happen. On to the answers:
Answer Choice (A) This is bait answer, and what makes this question particularly difficult. What we have to infer is that there are other ways of promoting smoking besides showing people smoking.
Answer Choice (B) Again, we want a reason to ban all advertisements that promote smoking; not just the ones that are misleading.
Answer Choice (C) Ok, but even if they did our author still believes they should be banned.
Answer Choice (D) We’ve been told nothing about government standards.
Correct Answer Choice (E) Bingo! What we need to catch on to is the contrapositive of this answer; if a product is unhealthy (i.e a health hazard) then it shouldn’t be promoted by advertisements. It would follow from this principle and the fact cigarette smoking has been shown to be unhealthy that cigarettes should not be promoted, which would support the government banning such promotions.
This is a flaw question, and we know that because of the question stem: A flaw in the reasoning in the argument above is that this argument…
We’re told that a when liquid from a bottle labeled “vinegar” is added to a box labeled “baking soda”, it does not fizz. Usually, when baking soda and acidic liquid (like vinegar) is combine, fizzing occurs. Because of this, the author concludes that the bottle was mislabeled. However, is this the only thing mislabeled? We don’t have enough evidence to rule out that the box was not mislabeled. We also can’t rule out that the vinegar is just gone bad and that’s why it’s not reacting.
Answer Choice (A) is not descriptively accurate; this is exactly what he’s suggesting.
Correct Answer Choice (B) is descriptively accurate and it’s the flaw. We already listed out two possibilities it could have been that the stimulus fails to rule out.
Answer Choice (C) is descriptively inaccurate; the use of the term fizz does not change.
Answer Choice (D) is descriptively accurate (it’s not entirely that principles can only be tested in labs, but let’s grant that it is); however, this is not a scientific principle.
Answer Choice (E) is descriptively inaccurate - the argument does not saying anything about the intention to deceive.
This is a Necessary Assumption question which we know because the question stem is asking us for an answer the argument relies on. This means the correct answer must be true if the argument is going to work, and if it isn’t true then the argument’s conclusion absolutely cannot follow.
Think about how significant a development this is in human history. Where would we be without math? And these simple counting tools are the earliest known evidence of its origins. Nice. Ok, but even though we had abstract representation of numbers as far back as 20,000 years, it was only 5,500 years ago that “systematic methods” were invented to write numbers. Okay, what about it? Well, since systematic methods only developed 5,500 years ago, conclusion: computation only became possible at that time.
I don’t really know what a “systematic method” is here, or how it differentiates from simple tally marks, but I suppose this makes sense. Ever tried to do basic division using Roman numerals? Good luck. And even Roman numerals could qualify as a systematic method since they are within our 5,500 year timeframe. Anything even worse than that and I guess I can see how calculations would be out of the question.
It’s very likely a correct answer will need to preclude more basic, non-systematic methods of representing numbers from being able to perform calculations. If I plus I equals II is a calculation, then it seems perfectly reasonable to think these 20,000 year old counting sticks could be thought of as calculators. We don’t want to commit to searching for anything in particular, and we want to stay open to suggestion of other things we may not have realized could be necessary, but it is certainly okay here if we are expecting our answer to do something in this area.
Answer Choice (A) No, we’re not interested in challenging the origins of these tools. In fact, the stimulus does not seem to entertain any possibility that these things aren’t exactly what we think they are. This certainly has nothing to do with our conclusion, in any case, and doesn’t have to be true for the conclusion to follow.
Answer Choice (B) Well I would think this would be true. I mean, we’re literally talking about rocks here. I very much doubt every last type of rock, bone, or stick was used. But even if this is almost certainly true, it doesn’t absolutely have to be true. They could’ve marked up every stick, stone, and bone on the planet and it would still have nothing to do with whether or not they were performing calculations.
Answer Choice (C) Well, yeah, but so what? They seem to date back 20,000 years. Homo sapiens evolved way longer ago than that. But, who cares? What if they do? So what? This has nothing to do with whether calculations were being performed before 5,500 years ago when “systematic methods” were invented.
Correct Answer Choice (D) Oh! This looks great. This establishes a “systematic method” of representation as a requirement for any computation. Whatever a “systematic method” is and whyever these earlier number symbols don’t qualify as systematic, we know there were no systematic methods until 5,500 years ago. This must be true for the conclusion to follow.
Answer Choice (E) We don’t care why it was invented, only when. Maybe they were invented just for the pure fun and joy of it. If so, not a problem at all.
This is a resolve reconcile explain question, though it may be difficult to identify. The phenomenon we are trying to explain is how the statistic could be accurate if the conclusion isn’t, i.e. how could emergency room visits grow if heroin use remained constant or declined. The question stem asks us: Which one of the following, if true, would account for the statistic above without supporting the author’s conclusion?
The statistic mentioned in the stem is that the amount of emergency room visits by heroin users increased by 20% during the 80s. The author concludes that this was a result of an increase in the use of heroin, but we want to explain why the phenomenon identified by the statistic occurred without supporting this conclusion, so our hypothesis can’t involve an increase in heroin use. We are therefore looking for an alternative hypothesis. Let’s see what we get in the answer choices.
Correct Answer Choice (A) Bingo! This answer gives us a reason for why more heroin users would end up in the hospital even if there wasn’t an increase in heroin use, namely, increased violence from the drug trade.
Answer Choice (B) If it reduced the risk of infection, we would expect a decrease in the number of hospital visits.
Answer Choice (C) Interesting, but this does nothing to explain why there was such an increase in the first place.
Answer Choice (D) Remember, we don’t want to support the conclusion that heroin use increased!
Answer Choice (E) This gives us a more detailed explanation of what specific issues caused heroin users to go to the emergency room, but not why the amount of them who did so increased. This is a more complete description of the phenomenon, not a hypothesis for why it occurred.
This is a Method of Reasoning question, and we know this because of the question stem: “The advertisement employs which one of the following argumentative strategies?”
This is an argument by analogy. The ad puts forward the relationship between exercise of physical organs and better performance of muscles and physical organs. The ad then says that because your brain is a physical organ, taking action it could improve its performance. From that, the ad concludes that we should subscribe to Stimulus and take action by reading. This isn’t a great argument, but our job is to describe what’s happening, not access its strength or validity.
Answer Choice (A) The ad beings with “anyone who exercises knows...” That’s not experimental evidence.
Answer Choice (B) The ad does not ridicule; it’s trying to incentivize people.
Answer Choice (C) This is describing the last part of the last sentence: Stimulus will exercise the brain. However, we’re not describing a sentence in the argument, we have to describe the whole argument.
Answer Choice (D) “Careful analysis” is certainly not what this ad is doing when it comes to exploring what exercise is.
Correct Answer Choice (E) This is perfectly describing what an argument by analogy is: A and B are similar in one way; therefore they are both similar in another way.