Q21

[josephine77777]

Can anybody explain why B is wrong?
Great thanks!

[andreperez7]

I got this one incorrect as well, choosing A, but in hindsight C, is in fact, correct. Here is why I believe so.

The first step is to accurately summarize Passage A`s argument, which, I would say, is as follows: new evidence shows us that the traditional view (that people can know they are not controlled by something else[ lines 9-11]) is suspect because of new evidence (neuroscience [lines 11-14]), suggesting we should rethink policy [prison terms [lines 19-24]).

Answer B does not end with a policy change, thus, leading it to be incorrect. C does. And A, which I chose, is just way off the mark. There's no new info leading to a different way of doing things. In that regard, B is closer than A.

So, which one says new evidence on thinking about something should lead to a policy change? That would be C. In hindsight, I think paraphrasing the argument before looking at the answer was the key.

[yhxsunshine]

Can anybody please explain why E is incorrect? I think "autonomous" here is an analogy of "rational" in line 5-9. This answer makes some sense to me since it seems to say that "rational" does not mean having full control. We can have someone who is autonomous even though they are unable to exercise control over some behaviors. Thanks much!

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Analogy/Application

Answer expected in lines/paragraph:
Since the question stem asks for an analogy for "the argument advanced in psg A", I would start by specifically trying to find a conclusion and premise in psg A.

Line 15 gives us Conclusion keywords: "This insight suggests that [conclusion]".

So the 'insight' on 9-14 seems to be the evidence.

Any prephrase?
The original argument is something like "Because brain scans make it seem like people don't really have control over their actions, we should stop thinking of punishment as retribution and focus on deterring future harms."

Trying to make that more generic, we might prephrase something like "if the source of a problem is different from what you had thought, then how you address that problem should change."

Correct answer:
C

Answer choice analysis:

(A) Hard to match any of this up. It sounds like a "less is more" type takeaway.

(B) Red flag: topic trap! It's repeating the idea 'rational', which is what a trap answer would love to do to fish us in. This doesn't have anything that feels like "because the problem is not what we thought it was, the reaction should be different". This is more like "because the subject matter is not what we thought it was, we can't study it with this tool."

(C) Sure, this could work. "Because the problem of teaching students math isn't what we thought it was, our response should be different". The revision in our thinking is also close to the original, in the sense that in both cases we're revising our thinking about something based on revelations about people's mental capacities.

(D) This argument proceeds from a conditional rule. There's no way we're gonna be able to match that up with our original.

(E) Red flag: topic trap! The idea of "autonomous" is so close to the topic of free will that this could be a trap answer. Indeed, this conclusion is not about choosing a new response/reaction to a certain problem. This conclusion just says "being X does not imply Y", or "some cases of X are actually not-Y". And the evidence has nothing to do with revising our thinking about the problem we're trying to solve.

Takeaway/Pattern: The most important moment of doing this problem is probably recognizing the term "argument" in the question stem and forcing yourself to find a Premise and Conclusion in Psg A.

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