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Problem 16 answer is D but I don't understand why E and the others are wrong exactly. And for 18 I don't understand exactly why B is correct.

b33eazy wrote:Problem 16 answer is D but I don't understand why E and the others are wrong exactly. And for 18 I don't understand exactly why B is correct.

16
I only have one premise (since the other sentence is someone else's belief):
Reptiles are incapable of making major changes in their behavior.
From this, I conclude that:
Reptiles are incapable of complex reasoning.

In order to reach that conclusion, I must assume that an animal capable of complex reasoning would, at some point, make major changes in their behavior (and, therefore, if they don't make major changes in their behavior, they are incapable of complex reasoning). All I've done is connected my premise to my conclusion. D is just the contrapositive of the following statement:
If (premise), then (conclusion) - fill in the statements from above.

A is the only other answer choice that connects my premise to my conclusion. But it gets it mixed up - my author assumes that majorly changing behavior is necessary to the ability to have complex reasoning, but he doesn't say it's sufficient.

18
Similar reasoning. Here, I conclude that accepting your own abilities is a bad principle if our goal is to create a society with genuinely happy people. The premise in support of this is that you can't be genuinely happy if you're not trying to better yourself. So I need to connect those two ideas - the author must be assuming that you can't accept yourself and your own abilities AND STILL try to better yourself. And that's what the correct answer does.

Thanks, but I have another question about 18, so when I negate it that's what it's saying? I accept myself and I want to better myself?

b33eazy wrote:so when I negate it that's what it's saying? I accept myself and I want to better myself?

You have to negate both parts of the statement, not just the first half. "If I am dissatisfied with myself, I am more likely to want to better myself."

TripTrip wrote:

b33eazy wrote:so when I negate it that's what it's saying? I accept myself and I want to better myself?

You have to negate both parts of the statement, not just the first half. "If I am dissatisfied with myself, I am more likely to want to better myself."

Thanks.