#20 - Scientists studying a common type of bacteria have

[BoomBoom]

my question on #20 is regarding the wording of probably not true and unlikely to be true. I picked b because I knew that this is a main point question and knew that this was the conclusion but i was thrown off by the re-wording.

Isn't the probability of something being not true different than saying something is unlikely to be true?

any help would be great, thanks!

[Claire Horan]

I don't see a difference here. "Probably not true" is the same as "likely not true." This is the same as "likely false." "Unlikely to be true" means "likely to be false." Can you think of anything situations where something would be "probably not true" but not "unlikely to be true?"

[Wisconsin123]

Hi,

Why is answer choice (C) incorrect? Doesn't it say the same thing as answer choice (B) - the correct answer?

Is it because the beginning of answer choice (C) "if bacteria are extremely diverse..." is not part of the conclusion sentence?

Thanks!

[Francis O'Rourke]

Hi Wisconsin,

What signals to me right away that answer choice (C) is incorrect is that this choice uses conditional language. The speaker is certain that "bacteria are extremely diverse," so restating the main point with an "If," like choice (C) does, warps the speaker's conclusion.

Imagine if you tell me the following: "I'm definitely going to have to stay at work late tonight, so we we're probably going to have to skip dinner." If I respond to you with "Well, if you will be late, we probably will." You'd probably get annoyed with me that I twisted your words around and that I'm not accepting what you already told me as true. That's similar to what choice (C) is doing here.

Choice (C) is a Shell Game: 15 out of 16 of the words are taken verbatim from the stimulus, but the slight change to the beginning makes it incorrect

[Wisconsin123]

Thanks! That was very helpful.

[sofisofi]

Hi!
While I know that B is the right answer, I was wondering if I could get an explanation for why D is not?
Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

Because that's not the conclusion, sofisofi!

There is only one main conclusion in any argument, and since you recognize that B captures that conclusion in this case, you should ask yourself what role answer D is playing in the overall argument. Does the author give us any evidence to support this claim? If not, then it is not a conclusion. Does the author use this claim to support another claim? If not, then it is not a premise. That's what's happening with the claim given in answer D - it gets no support and gives no support, so it is neither a premise nor a conclusion.

So what is it? There's no obvious label that we can apply, but if I had to describe that claim I would say something like "it delineates a sufficient criterion for the validity of the opposing conclusion." Or, if I didn't want to sound all fancy, I might say "it's something the author says would prove the microbiologists were right, if it was true."

The conclusion is the thing the author is trying to prove. The author here is not trying to prove that the microbiologists would be right if all bacteria was the same. They are trying to prove that the microbiologists are not right, and that the opposite of what they claimed is probably true.