Self-study
Researcher: We have found that Support some cases of high blood pressure can be treated effectively with medicine. █████ ██ ██ █████████ ████████ ████ ███ ███████ ██████ ██ ██████ ██ █████████ ████ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ███████ ████ █████ ██ ████ █████ ████████ ████ ███ ██ ██████ ██ ███████
Summary
The researcher concludes that some cases of high blood pressure must not be caused by stress. His reasoning is that, if an illness is caused by stress, it can only be treated by reducing stress. And some cases of high blood pressure have been treated with medicine.
Notable Assumptions
The researcher draws a distinction between treatment through reducing stress and treatment through medicine. But what if the medicine that treated the high blood pressure did so by reducing stress? The argument wouldn’t make sense in that case.
Therefore, the researcher must assume that medicine used to treat high blood pressure does not work by reducing stress.
20.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███ ████████████ █████████
a
The correlation between ██████ ███ ███ █████ ██ ████ █████ ████████ ██ ██████ █████████████
The author doesn’t have to make such an aggressive assumption. His conclusion is only that some cases of high blood pressure are not caused by stress—not that no cases are ever caused by stress.
b
The reduction of ██████ ██ █ ████████ ████ ███ ██ █████ █████ ████ ████████ █████ █████████
The basis of the researcher’s argument is that some cases of high blood pressure were treated with medicine, rather than stress reduction. He therefore has no need to assume that stress reduction can be an effective treatment; that, if anything, weakens his conclusion.
c
Reduced stress does ███ ██████ █ ████████ ██████████████ ██ ████████ ████ ██ █████ ████ █████ █████████
If this is negated, reduced stress does reduce a person’s responsiveness to blood pressure medicine. But this doesn’t contradict the researcher’s argument: the medicine could still be effective, even if it’s less so than it otherwise would be.
d
Some conditions that ███ ███████ ███████████ ██ █████████ ███ ███ ████ █████████ ███████ ███ █████████ ██ ███████
The researcher’s premise is that illnesses caused by stress are only treatable by stress reduction. If high blood pressure is treatable by both stress reduction and medicine, it’s consistent with his conclusion that it isn’t always caused by stress.
e
Medicine used to █████ ████ █████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████ ██████ ███████
If this is negated, medicine used to treat high blood pressure does itself reduce stress. If so, this contradicts the researcher’s argument: maybe the medicine works by reducing stress. We would have no reason to believe some cases of high blood pressure aren’t caused by stress.