Follow-up practice: compare qualifications, purposes and evidential limits

Compare what two passages actually commit to while preserving their different purposes, qualifications and standards of evidence.

Paper packet. Every task here also exists on screen, where it is checked automatically; answers written on paper are not assessed by Nydus. When you are back at a device, enter your answers there.

1. What you will learn

Compare what two passages actually commit to while preserving their different purposes, qualifications and standards of evidence. Attempt these four new problems without notes after a study gap. Explain the decisive restriction before opening feedback.

2. Practice

The disagreement depends most on a distinction between

Question context

Passage A: Surveys of public preferences should count each respondent equally. Weighting answers seems inconsistent with that principle.

Passage B: When sampling reaches one district much more often than another, equal respondent weights can overrepresent the first district. Population weights can restore equal representation of residents rather than respondents.

equality within the sample and equality in representation of the population.
honest and dishonest respondents.
preferences that never change and preferences that do.
numerical surveys and nonnumerical interviews.
districts with laws and districts without laws.

3. Practice

Both passages caution against

Question context

Passage A: A species found only in ancient deposits is often described as primitive. That label can misleadingly imply that evolutionary change moves toward a single superior design.

Passage B: A technical description should distinguish the age of a lineage from the timing of a particular trait. A recently branching lineage can retain an old trait, while an old lineage can evolve a new one.

collapsing distinct biological ideas into a simple historical ranking.
using any historical evidence in biology.
distinguishing traits from lineages.
acknowledging that evolution occurs.
describing deposits as ancient.

4. Practice

B's position is best described as

Question context

Passage A: Open access to court records allows citizens to evaluate legal institutions. Secrecy obstructs that scrutiny.

Passage B: Access matters, but publishing searchable names can expose witnesses to risks that inspecting a paper file rarely created. A policy can preserve scrutiny of decisions while limiting some personal identifiers.

supporting access while proposing a limit responsive to a changed risk.
rejecting all public scrutiny of courts.
claiming paper files contain no names.
insisting that all information must remain searchable.
proving that every witness has suffered harm.

5. Practice

The passages are most plausibly read as

Question context

Passage A: Repeated failures of a prediction can justify revising a theory. A theory shielded from every possible observation ceases to explain much.

Passage B: A failed prediction may arise from a faulty auxiliary assumption or measuring instrument. Revision should identify what failed rather than automatically discarding the central theory.

agreeing that failure matters but emphasizing different stages of evaluating it.
disagreeing about whether instruments can malfunction.
both recommending automatic rejection after one failure.
both insulating theories from all evidence.
claiming no prediction can be tested.

6. What you can do now

Classify errors as interpretation, method or execution. Revisit the preceding worked examples, then try a different problem before returning to these questions.