I just don't get how E strengthens... what? Are we looking to strengthen the premise, because the conclusion seems to be the very opposite of the answer! I JUST don't get it! smh
The conclusion is saying that snoring causes damage. So E it’s supporting the idea that it’s not the other way around which is strengthening the conclusion. I hope that kind of makes sense.
This is a great example of where 7sage could be improved with more rigorous use of causal inference in explanations. This question is a fantastic example of several key issues: A. measurement error: self report of snoring is a poor measure of snoring. Wrong answer because it weakens rather than strengthens the causal argument. B and D, collider bias: the study is conditioned on "having throat surgery". If the exposure variable (here snoring) or outcome (biopsy detectable damage) are associated with the variable conditioned on (having throat surgery), it creates a spurious correlation. Both B and D strengthen the argument by attacking that association, but they do not strengthen as much as eliminating reverse causality. C, homogeneity of test group: homogeneity is an issue for generalizability, but actually helps internal validity, because it reduces confounding (for the variables identified here as homogeneous). Because the stimulus causal claim is "snoring CAN damage the throat of the snorer", we don't need generalizability, and C also strengthens the argument, but again, not as much as eliminating the threat of reverse causality. E, reverse causality: this is the largest threat to the causal claim in a cross sectional study. Eliminating it is the choice that most strengthens the causal claim.
Was originally thinking that C was a mild strengthener because there was not a skewed distribution of age, weight, or health, meaning that both the snore and non-snore groups were similar in this way.
HOWEVER, if this were the case, then you could say that the conclusion from the biopsies does not translate to the general population as the conclusion suggests that it does. If everyone in the group were healthy college students, then a conclusion cannot be drawn about the general population, only about healthy college students.
@brydon125 C is certainly a mild strengthener, because the stimulus doesn't require the causal relationship to be generalizable. It says "snoring CAN damage the throat of the snorer", which is satisfied by a causal relationship in a specific subset. When you reduce the variability of potential confounders, you increase the likelihood that an association is actually causal. But it is much less of a strengthener than eliminating reverse causality, which is the biggest threat to a causal claim in a cross sectional (single time point) study, where you can't clearly establish that the proposed cause happened first. Since reverse causality is what E addresses, it's the right answer.
E is blocking the potential hypothesis that the stim got the cause and effect relationship backwards. That explanation would've said that it wasnt the snoring that cause the abnormalities, but the abnormalities that caused the snoring. Thus, E denies this possibility so it is the right answer. I just wish I didn't fall for C
I'm confused on this one because answer choice C to me is saying ok great, there is no issue of age weight or other health problems causing the abnormality; therefore, it must be the snoring that is causing this.
@JackClemons85 You are correct that the test subjects being of similar age, weight, and health strengthens the idea that SOMETHING is causing the throat abnormalities. However, this is no way means that snoring is that cause. It could just as easily be a different cause like smoking or certain foods. Answer choice C actually weakens the argument by showing that alternative hypotheses are possible. The stimulus says, "snoring causes damage." We can strengthen this by eliminating the alternate hypothesis "damage causes snoring" (as seen in answer choice E).
I do not know why but this video and the last one does not seem to have helped me, I hope I am wrong and with practice I'll get these answers hopefully always correct., for now I'm still a little scared of the LSAT due to timing, but I am feeling better towards it.,
Am I going crazy or is Answer choice E in the video completely missing from the actual question that shows up when clicking "Show question" on this lesson, Lesson 3?
This fuggen question sent me on a deep dive to find why E is correct.
What I gather is ignore premises, were not trying to make them stronger. Their just a distraction. Either this is a BS question or the strat for Strengthen questions is to focus solely on the conclusion.
Conclusion: This shows that snoring can damage the throat of the snorer"
Meaning: Snoring damages throat.
Find the answer that says damage to throat doesnt cause snoring. Its flipped around! Confusing AF, thats how it worked here. The right answer states clearly that the throat abnormalities do NOT cause snoring.
If their all like this or not, this could be another tool in the toolbox to solve these questions. Focus on that conclusion just like weaken and F the rest. Especially if there is NOTHING in the conclusion relating to the past premises. In this case the conclusion doesnt mention the study, biopsies, or different groups of people. Gotta throw all that stuff out. They made it so simple to read but complicated to understand, that must be one of their tricks we need to watch for!!!
Once i re reead the above, then E makes sense!!! Before that I was tied to helping the premise and even the video didnt help explain it to help me understand, or my brain glazed over maybe both but reading the above AFTER I wrote it seems to work, maybe we all need to write it out or just read it? I dunno.
@AutonomousTacticalTheory I think you're right on point with this. If you look back to the fundamental definitions of premises and conclusions, you'll see that a premise is something that provides support to a conclusion.
Premises CAN support other premises, but that's not how it's really defined. So, as you pointed out, the goal of this type of question is to look for something that bolsters support for the conclusion - i.e., ignore the other premises because they don't really matter.
However, I could see a level 5 difficulty question being sneaky where the best answer is one that strengthens support for a premise that supports the conclusion.
Either way, thanks for this - the video was garbage in helping me.
I think strengthen might be harder for me than the others. The other lessons were easy to nail, but this seems more tricky. If answer E was worded in the "more difficult" way, I don't think I would get this one right. With answer E as is, it's fairly easy.
How do you know when the question is talking about a correlation vs Causation? Or is every question like that? Just from reading the stimulus I could not tell it was discussing a correlation. #help #feedback
@IsabellaP I don't think every question is a correlation vs causation issue. However, a good indicator is when the stimulus presents data of the type "if X, then more likely to Y" or "if not X, then more likely to Y" or "if X, then less likely to Y" (these are correlations) and then overeaches in its conclusion by saying something like "therefore X causes Y" (aka causation). If the stimulus don't present a mechanism to explain why or how X causes Y, then we should be critical of the conclusion and be aware that there are alternative hypotheses that could explain the correlation between X and Y (and these hypotheses do not have to be causal either -a correlation between 2 variables can sometimes be explained by a 3rd variable acting independently on each of the first 2 variables).
Now let's look at this particular example. Let's read the stimulus without the conclusion: "Tissue biopsies taken on patients who have undergone throat surgery show that those who snored frequently were significantly more likely to have serious abnormalities in their throat muscles than those who snored rarely or not at all."
^this says:
if frequent snoring --> more likely to have abnormalities
if no/rare snoring --> less likely to have abnormalities
We could graph the above relationship with snoring on the Y axis and abnormalities on the X axis (or vice versa) and we would see that as abnormalities increase on the horizontal axis, snoring increases on the vertical axis as well. If we graphed it the other way, we would see that as snoring increases on the horizontal axis, abnormalities increase on the vertical axis as well. These graphs simply show that the two phenomena, snoring and abnormalities, happen to move in the same direction: as one increases, the other increases, and vice versa. In other words, the variables are correlated with each other. HOWEVER, this does not prove that one factor causes the other. They could be causally related, but they don't have to be. For instance, maybe there is a third variable like smoking that causes both snoring and throat abnormalities. The important thing is that the stimulus, up to this point, is silent about causation; it does not propose any mechanisms that could explain how one factor causes the other.
Now let's look at the conclusion: "This shows that snoring can damage the throat of the snorer."
Now the arrow between frequent snoring and abnormalities has been transformed into a causal arrrow. But on what grounds? Why should we assume that it's the abnomalities that cause snoring? Maybe it's the snoring that causes the abnormalities? Or maybe there is a third variable at play! (recall smoking like I talked about above). Do you see how all these causal explanations are consistent with the correlation? The stimulus just picks one causal explanation without ruling out other hypotheses. That's why we're looking for an answer choice like E) that rules out an alternative hypothesis and makes the stated conclusion more likely.
@AudreyGilmour *edit: Now the arrow between frequent snoring and abnormalities has been transformed into a causal arrrow. But on what grounds? Why should we assume that it's the snoring that causes abnormalities? Maybe it's the abnormalities that cause snoring?
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101 comments
I just don't get how E strengthens... what? Are we looking to strengthen the premise, because the conclusion seems to be the very opposite of the answer! I JUST don't get it! smh
The conclusion is saying that snoring causes damage. So E it’s supporting the idea that it’s not the other way around which is strengthening the conclusion. I hope that kind of makes sense.
everyone in the discussion wondering why C is wrong meanwhile I was so bent on it being B. LOOL
strengthens/weakens do NAWT make sense to me. hoping if i keep trucking and drill some it will click??
I confused the causal relationship so didn’t even think E could be correct and chose C instead. This was a hard one!
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills? Am I still searching for an Alternative hypothesis?
@AndreCarter LOL Same here!
certified yapper on this one sheesh
so... strengthen: weakening the support to strengthen the hypothesis. Weaken: strengthen the support to weaken the hypothesis?
@rmuriel66 Right feels absolutely backwards, god have mercy on my soul when I take the LSAT.
This makes absolutely NO sense to me. How could E strengthen the passage?
@Jconroy18 it is the only one that makes sense compared to other answer choices to me so I used POE here
Great Explanation Ty Mr. JY
This is a great example of where 7sage could be improved with more rigorous use of causal inference in explanations. This question is a fantastic example of several key issues: A. measurement error: self report of snoring is a poor measure of snoring. Wrong answer because it weakens rather than strengthens the causal argument. B and D, collider bias: the study is conditioned on "having throat surgery". If the exposure variable (here snoring) or outcome (biopsy detectable damage) are associated with the variable conditioned on (having throat surgery), it creates a spurious correlation. Both B and D strengthen the argument by attacking that association, but they do not strengthen as much as eliminating reverse causality. C, homogeneity of test group: homogeneity is an issue for generalizability, but actually helps internal validity, because it reduces confounding (for the variables identified here as homogeneous). Because the stimulus causal claim is "snoring CAN damage the throat of the snorer", we don't need generalizability, and C also strengthens the argument, but again, not as much as eliminating the threat of reverse causality. E, reverse causality: this is the largest threat to the causal claim in a cross sectional study. Eliminating it is the choice that most strengthens the causal claim.
Was originally thinking that C was a mild strengthener because there was not a skewed distribution of age, weight, or health, meaning that both the snore and non-snore groups were similar in this way.
HOWEVER, if this were the case, then you could say that the conclusion from the biopsies does not translate to the general population as the conclusion suggests that it does. If everyone in the group were healthy college students, then a conclusion cannot be drawn about the general population, only about healthy college students.
@brydon125 C is certainly a mild strengthener, because the stimulus doesn't require the causal relationship to be generalizable. It says "snoring CAN damage the throat of the snorer", which is satisfied by a causal relationship in a specific subset. When you reduce the variability of potential confounders, you increase the likelihood that an association is actually causal. But it is much less of a strengthener than eliminating reverse causality, which is the biggest threat to a causal claim in a cross sectional (single time point) study, where you can't clearly establish that the proposed cause happened first. Since reverse causality is what E addresses, it's the right answer.
E is blocking the potential hypothesis that the stim got the cause and effect relationship backwards. That explanation would've said that it wasnt the snoring that cause the abnormalities, but the abnormalities that caused the snoring. Thus, E denies this possibility so it is the right answer. I just wish I didn't fall for C
damn, was between c and e and chose wrong
This made 0 sense to me. E did not seem like the right answer to me at all.
I'm confused on this one because answer choice C to me is saying ok great, there is no issue of age weight or other health problems causing the abnormality; therefore, it must be the snoring that is causing this.
@JackClemons85 You are correct that the test subjects being of similar age, weight, and health strengthens the idea that SOMETHING is causing the throat abnormalities. However, this is no way means that snoring is that cause. It could just as easily be a different cause like smoking or certain foods. Answer choice C actually weakens the argument by showing that alternative hypotheses are possible. The stimulus says, "snoring causes damage." We can strengthen this by eliminating the alternate hypothesis "damage causes snoring" (as seen in answer choice E).
This one made no sense tbh
I do not know why but this video and the last one does not seem to have helped me, I hope I am wrong and with practice I'll get these answers hopefully always correct., for now I'm still a little scared of the LSAT due to timing, but I am feeling better towards it.,
I initially chose C because I was ~tricked~...
E is correct because it eliminates reverse causation (which in turn eliminates any alternative hypothesis)
we want to strengthen
snore-->abnormalities
So by getting rid of the possibility of
abnormalities-->snore
we do that.
MY THOUGHT PROCESS
snoring can damage throat
a --- wrong bc irrelevant
The study relied on the subjects' self-reporting to determine whether or not they snored frequently.
b --- wrong don't know why the surgery was undertaken. we know that the surgery determined effects of snoring.
The patients' throat surgery was not undertaken to treat abnormalities in their throat muscles.
c --- wrong bc irrelevant
All of the test subjects were of similar age and weight and in similar states of health.
d ---well can't be sure
People who have undergone throat surgery are no more likely to snore than people who have not undergone throat surgery.
e ---abnormalities don't cause snoring, given the stim snoring might cause abnormalities. THEREFORE snoring can damage the throat CORRECT
The abnormalities in the throat muscles discovered in the study do not cause snoring.
Possible alternative hypothesis.
A causes B.
B causes A.
C causes A and C
No correlation
Strengthen is basically, stimulus: snoring causes abnormalities (A causes B)
Answer is basically B does not cause A.
this entire section genuinely took away all my hope
Am I going crazy or is Answer choice E in the video completely missing from the actual question that shows up when clicking "Show question" on this lesson, Lesson 3?
@JeffreyVargas7 he was offering an alternative answer choice to show what a harder difficulty question would look like
This fuggen question sent me on a deep dive to find why E is correct.
What I gather is ignore premises, were not trying to make them stronger. Their just a distraction. Either this is a BS question or the strat for Strengthen questions is to focus solely on the conclusion.
Conclusion: This shows that snoring can damage the throat of the snorer"
Meaning: Snoring damages throat.
Find the answer that says damage to throat doesnt cause snoring. Its flipped around! Confusing AF, thats how it worked here. The right answer states clearly that the throat abnormalities do NOT cause snoring.
If their all like this or not, this could be another tool in the toolbox to solve these questions. Focus on that conclusion just like weaken and F the rest. Especially if there is NOTHING in the conclusion relating to the past premises. In this case the conclusion doesnt mention the study, biopsies, or different groups of people. Gotta throw all that stuff out. They made it so simple to read but complicated to understand, that must be one of their tricks we need to watch for!!!
Once i re reead the above, then E makes sense!!! Before that I was tied to helping the premise and even the video didnt help explain it to help me understand, or my brain glazed over maybe both but reading the above AFTER I wrote it seems to work, maybe we all need to write it out or just read it? I dunno.
@AutonomousTacticalTheory Thank you for this because I was extremely confused how JY got the answer E.
@AutonomousTacticalTheory I think you're right on point with this. If you look back to the fundamental definitions of premises and conclusions, you'll see that a premise is something that provides support to a conclusion.
Premises CAN support other premises, but that's not how it's really defined. So, as you pointed out, the goal of this type of question is to look for something that bolsters support for the conclusion - i.e., ignore the other premises because they don't really matter.
However, I could see a level 5 difficulty question being sneaky where the best answer is one that strengthens support for a premise that supports the conclusion.
Either way, thanks for this - the video was garbage in helping me.
I think strengthen might be harder for me than the others. The other lessons were easy to nail, but this seems more tricky. If answer E was worded in the "more difficult" way, I don't think I would get this one right. With answer E as is, it's fairly easy.
How do you know when the question is talking about a correlation vs Causation? Or is every question like that? Just from reading the stimulus I could not tell it was discussing a correlation. #help #feedback
@IsabellaP I don't think every question is a correlation vs causation issue. However, a good indicator is when the stimulus presents data of the type "if X, then more likely to Y" or "if not X, then more likely to Y" or "if X, then less likely to Y" (these are correlations) and then overeaches in its conclusion by saying something like "therefore X causes Y" (aka causation). If the stimulus don't present a mechanism to explain why or how X causes Y, then we should be critical of the conclusion and be aware that there are alternative hypotheses that could explain the correlation between X and Y (and these hypotheses do not have to be causal either -a correlation between 2 variables can sometimes be explained by a 3rd variable acting independently on each of the first 2 variables).
Now let's look at this particular example. Let's read the stimulus without the conclusion: "Tissue biopsies taken on patients who have undergone throat surgery show that those who snored frequently were significantly more likely to have serious abnormalities in their throat muscles than those who snored rarely or not at all."
^this says:
if frequent snoring --> more likely to have abnormalities
if no/rare snoring --> less likely to have abnormalities
We could graph the above relationship with snoring on the Y axis and abnormalities on the X axis (or vice versa) and we would see that as abnormalities increase on the horizontal axis, snoring increases on the vertical axis as well. If we graphed it the other way, we would see that as snoring increases on the horizontal axis, abnormalities increase on the vertical axis as well. These graphs simply show that the two phenomena, snoring and abnormalities, happen to move in the same direction: as one increases, the other increases, and vice versa. In other words, the variables are correlated with each other. HOWEVER, this does not prove that one factor causes the other. They could be causally related, but they don't have to be. For instance, maybe there is a third variable like smoking that causes both snoring and throat abnormalities. The important thing is that the stimulus, up to this point, is silent about causation; it does not propose any mechanisms that could explain how one factor causes the other.
Now let's look at the conclusion: "This shows that snoring can damage the throat of the snorer."
Now the arrow between frequent snoring and abnormalities has been transformed into a causal arrrow. But on what grounds? Why should we assume that it's the abnomalities that cause snoring? Maybe it's the snoring that causes the abnormalities? Or maybe there is a third variable at play! (recall smoking like I talked about above). Do you see how all these causal explanations are consistent with the correlation? The stimulus just picks one causal explanation without ruling out other hypotheses. That's why we're looking for an answer choice like E) that rules out an alternative hypothesis and makes the stated conclusion more likely.
Hope this helps!
@AudreyGilmour *edit: Now the arrow between frequent snoring and abnormalities has been transformed into a causal arrrow. But on what grounds? Why should we assume that it's the snoring that causes abnormalities? Maybe it's the abnormalities that cause snoring?