One sure way you can tell

Answer choices

1. A

   Negation Bait12% picked this

   Dictionary editors are not professionally interested in words that are only

   This is the classic "Fake Opposite" trap answer in Necessary Assumption. If the stimulus said that "children with dark hair love their mother", there would be a trap answer accusing the author of assuming that "children with light hair don't love their mother". We were told that editors are professionally interested in when words have passed into common usage. No one ever said that's the only thing they're interested in, so the author isn't making any assumptions about what other stuff they may or may not be interested in.

   12%
2. B

   Too Strong: exact numerical criteria12% picked this

   Dictionary editors have exact numerical criteria for telling when a word has passed

   This answer suggests that dictionary editors use specific numerical thresholds, but this isn't necessary. The argument only requires that they can reliably identify when words have entered common usage, not that they use precise numbers to do so.

   12%
3. C

   Too Strong16% picked this

   For a new idea to take hold, dictionary editors have to include the relevant word or

   Too Strong: have to Out of Scope: inclusion in dictionaries This is worded way too strongly, because the author doesn't have to assume that there is any necessary condition for "new idea taking hold". We are consulting dictionary editors' opinions about whether or not a word has passed into common usage. Whether those editors choose to put such a word into a new edition of a dictionary is up to them and has nothing to do with our plan.

   16%
4. D

   Correct51% picked this

   As a word passes into common usage, its meaning does not undergo any severe distortions

   Why this is right

   This answer has the lovable Defender "not", so we negate it and see if it would weaken. If meanings were severely distorted in the process of going from the original idea to when the word representing that idea passed into common usage, then monitoring common usage of a word would be decoupled from monitoring whether the original idea has taken hold. For example, if an original idea was "becoming aware of structural racism" and the word used to describe that was "woke", but by the time "woke" had passed into common usage it now meant "being obsessed with identity politics and over-policing language", then the fact that the word "woke" has taken hold among the population doesn't mean that the idea of "becoming aware of structural racism" has taken hold among the population.

   Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   51%
5. E

   Opposite (if anything)9% picked this

   Words denoting new ideas tend to be used before the ideas

   The author's plan wants a correspondence between using the word and understanding the idea behind it. This answer is actually weakening that connection.

   9%