confused about answer choice e

Hey there, Happy to help. The stimulus can be broken down into a series of conditional statements. If a novel is set in a city that the reviewer knows well, if the reviewer is to take the writer seriously, the writer must show that she knows the city at least as well as the reviewer. Set in city knows well + take writer seriously - ->writer must know city at least as well as reviewer If the writer demonstrates the required knowledge, then the reviewer trusts the storyteller and the tale. writer demonstrates required knowledge - >reviewer trusts storyteller and tale If the reviewer trusts the tale, then it increases the reviewer's enjoyment reviewer trusts tale - >increases reviewer's enjoyment We're told at the end of the stimulus that Peter Lee's second novel is in San Francisco, and just like his first, it passes the reviewer's test. The question asks, "Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the passage?" We're looking for something that must be true. What can we infer from the stimulus? We know that the novel is in San Francisco, and we also know that it passed the reviewer's test. And, since this novel passes the reviewer's test, we know that the writer has to know San Francisco at least as well as the reviewer does. We also know that since the writer demonstrated the required knowledge, then the reviewer has to trust both the storyteller (Peter Lee) and the tale (the novel). Additionally, since the reviewer does trust the novel, we know that the reviewer's enjoyment of the novel is also increased. We need an answer choice that expresses one or more of these deductions. (E) says, "The book reviewer does not believe that she knows San Francisco better than Peter Lee does." You had said (E) confused you because you didn't get how the book reviewer not believing she knows better about San Francisco is equivalent to the condition that the writer knows at least as much about San Francisco. You also wondered if they could possibly know equally the same about San Francisco, how can the book reviewer conclusively not know better? Here's why (E) must be true. If the reviewer did not believe that she knew San Francisco better, then she would not trust the writer. However, the reviewer does trust the writer. Since she trusts the writer, it must be the case that the reviewer believes that the novelist knows at least as much about San Francisco as she does. It's totally possible that they know the same amount about San Francisco, but what matters is that the writer knows AT LEAST AS MUCH as the reviewer. This is the necessary condition that must be satisfied in the first rule based on the sufficient conditions. When we apply the rule contained within the first sentence, we know that the reviewer must believe that Peter Lee knows San Francisco at least as well as the reviewer. While it is true that the reviewer doesn't ever claim she's familiar with San Francisco, because the reviewer says that Peter Lee passes the test, we can infer that the reviewer believes that she can apply the rule that she has laid out in the first sentence. From this, we can infer that the reviewer knows San Francisco well and the writer knows it at least as well as the reviewer. Does this help? Let us know if you have any more questions!