Self-study
Several recent studies establish that Conclusion most people would want to be informed if they had any serious medical condition. ██ ████ ██████ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ██████ ████████ █████████ ████ ████ █████ ████ ██ ██ █████
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that most people would want to be informed if they had any serious medical condition. As support, the author says that in each of several recent studies, over 80% of those surveyed said that they would want to be informed if they had a serious medical condition.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that these studies surveyed a group that was representative enough to make broad, generalized conclusions that apply to “most people.” The author also assumes that the sample sizes for these surveys was high enough to make conclusions that apply to “most people.” Additionally, the author assumes that the survey design was high quality for each survey, and that the questions were not phrased in a way that could bias the results.
12.
Each of the following, if █████ ███████ ███ ████████ ███████
a
In another recent ██████ ████ ██ ███ ██████ ████████ █████████ ████ ████ █████ ███ ████ ██ ██ ████ ██ ████ ███ █ ███████ ███████ ██████████
(A) weakens the argument because it introduces survey data that contradicts our author’s conclusion. We have no information about how any of these surveys were conducted, or how many studies support our argument, so a survey with contradictory information weakens the argument.
b
People often do ███ ████████ █████ ████ ████████ ████ ██████████ ██ ████████
(B) weakens the argument because it provides a reason to doubt survey data as legitimate evidence to make the kind of claim that the author is making.
c
Some of the ███████████ ██████████ ███ ███████ ███ ██ ██████████ ██ █████████
If someone has no background in medicine, it does not mean that they would be unable to conduct a quality survey. Also, we only know that “some” of the researchers had no background in medicine, which only tells us that this applies to at least one researcher.
d
Some questions asked ██ ███ ███████ █████████ ████ ██████████ ██████ █████ ████ ██ ██ ████ ██ ████ ███ █ ███████ ███████ ██████████
This weakens the argument because it says that at least some of the survey questions were phrased in a way that would bias the results, which gives reason to doubt the validity of these surveys.
e
The people surveyed ██ ███ ███████ ████ ███ █████ ████████ ██ ████████████ ██████████ ████████
(E) tells us that the surveys were not conducted on a representative sample. This weakens the argument because it makes it far less likely that the results of the survey can be generalized to make a conclusion about “most people.”