Nice process
ericha3535! Mind if I add my own take?
In
Identify the Disagreement questions, it's easy to make assumptions about what one of the parties would agree to. The test-writers are counting on that!
Notice how much new information Simon brings up that Justine never has a chance to comment on: legal fees, cost-effectiveness, etc! But since we read from top to bottom, by the time we're done with the stimulus, we have a tendency to fill in the blanks on what we think Justine mostly likely might have thought of those things. And that's exactly what we shouldn't do!
Let's distill their comments:
JUSTINE:
1) Pellman settled
2) Settlement indicates leaders expected to lose
SIMON:
1) unclear whether leaders expected to lose
2) leaders expected legal fees > settlement costs (whether win or lose)
3) Therefore, settling would seem most cost-effective.
Also notice how little Justine actually says:
1) Pellman settled 2) settlement indicates the leaders expected to lose. That's it! We don't need to twist ourselves in knots trying to figure out if a statement lines up with Simon if we have no idea what Justine would think about it!
The only answer choice Justine even has a chance at having an opinion on is
(E). If they'd expected to win, they wouldn't have settled.
So, the fact that they settled indicates that they thought they'd lose. This is Justine's second statement, so she clearly agrees. Simon disagrees in his first statement: he thinks it's unclear that they expected to lose, despite the fact that they settled.
Not the Disagreement(A) Neither of them claim what
would have happened, only what the corporate leaders expected to happen.
(B) Neither of them claim anything about the
accuracy of the corporate leaders' expectations, only what the corporate leaders expected.
(C) &
(D) Simon probably agrees with both of these - but Justine never gets a chance to weigh in on legal fees, cost-effectiveness, etc!
This is a tricky
Identify the Disagreement question! Don't assume the first person disagrees with things they've never had a chance to respond to!
I hope this helps!