Q3 - Requiring that passwords conform to rules of

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Strengthen (but probably will feel more like Sufficient Assumption)

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Requiring weird passwords INCREASES the likelihood of someone breaking into your account.
Evidence: Hackers aren't going to randomly guess your password, but you'll probably write your password down somewhere, since it's so hard to remember.

Answer Anticipation:
How do we get from the Evidence to the Conclusion? How do we get from "because we have complex passwords, users often write passwords down" to "because we have complex passwords, it's easier to break into someone's account"? The author seems to be assuming that hackers will FIND your password written down somewhere and use that to break into your account. And the author seems to assume that if we were allowed to pick simpler passwords, people WOULDN'T write them down and it would be harder for thieves to break in.

Correct Answer:
C

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) This feels like it goes AGAINST something the author said in her evidence (that complex passwords can be hard to remember).

(B) This does nothing to get us from "we're writing them down" to "increased risk of ppl breaking into our account".

(C) YES, this explicitly gets us from the premise idea to the conclusion idea.

(D) This is similar to (B), elaborating on the locked/unlocked process. We need to get from a premise about "writing down passwords" to a conclusion about "increased risk of unauthorized access".

(E) This might feel like it helps. It sounds like simpler passwords would be at least as hard to guess as these complex passwords. If the conclusion were, "Therefore, we should get rid of the complex password requirement", this would strengthen by ruling out an objection. But the conclusion is only trying to prove that "complex passwords pose an increased risk". This answer choice, at face value, makes it sound like complex passwords pose an equal risk compared to simpler ones. If this idea said, "Complex ideas are easier to guess" it would mildly strengthen.

Takeaway/Pattern: This Strengthen question definitely DID end up acting more like Sufficient Assumption (it asks, "Which answer, if true, makes the argument strongly supported" whereas Sufficient Assumption would say "Which answer, if true, makes the conclusion follow logically"). Treating it like Sufficient Assumption, we would prephrase an answer that says "If Premise, then Conclusion". "If complex passwords lead to writing them down, then complex passwords increase likelihood of unauthorized access."

#officialexplanation