Hi! I got the correct answer, but I wanted to clarify my thinking. For the weaken experiment questions are we trying to figure out/find the AC that proves the stimulus hypothesis wrong? For instance, he is saying stretching doesn’t have an effect, so I should look for something that says stretching does actually have an effect? Thank you!
@IsabellaP Also, are we supposed to assume that unless they specifically state in the stimulus "random large selection for the control and treatment group" that they didn't do so, and this could be a flaw in the argument (if presented as an answer choice)?
@IsabellaP NOT "proves the stimulus hypothesis wrong". WEAKENS the hypothesis. Maybe the hypothesis is still true, but we have given a valid reason to call it into question. ie, weakend it. So don't rule out an answer options just because it does not definitively rule out the hypothesis.
Hard question. Rare case of outside knowledge being harmful. In this case I knew intuitively that experiments structured like this are prone to errors due to the bias in who performs the activity tending to be people who experience the effect you're looking for, but did not actually understand why the answer I chose was correct.
I've noticed a couple of questions where the writers will prey on the scientific intuition of STEM majors and this one threw me for a loop because it was exactly what I thought.
@ClarEmile What? You were confused because you knew the answer? Also a STEM major, and also knew intuitively that was one of the flaws with this type of study, so went into hunt mode, found it, and got it done much under time. Don't be afraid to use your outside knowledge. Unless the question painstakingly builds a hypothetical world which differs from ours, then you can absolutely use real-world knowledge to avoid naive assumptions. Its an advantage, not a hinderance.
I didn't even have to waste time on the other answers. Skimmed them maybe, but was able to find a very strong weakness of the study, and move one. Take advantage of that.
Me and my cat celebrating in my room after I get a difficulty 5 question right(I used POE and was highly skeptical of the answer that was left but YOLO)
I chose C Because I said to myself: Most doesn't equal All. So the remaining injuries could very likely be joint or tightness injuries which flexibility from stretching will help. I confused possibility logic with argument impact logic. I should have just focused on what was stated in the choice. Great question to learn from!!!
I'm going to be 100% honest, I used chat GPT to help me understand this better Lol.. and it truly did help. I got it right in BR, wrong first attempt. I understood the stimulus, it's the AC's that were throwing me completely off.
maybe this is me trying to cope but the only reason I got this one wrong was because, for some reason, in the middle of reading the answer choices, my brain switched to "you're finding a strengthener", chose C, and I just ran with it like ohhhhh brotherrrr
is it reasonable to assume that every time a stim describing an experiment does not state, "the participants were assigned into two groups" that the participants self-selected?
i dont know why i have such a hard time reading these questions. i feel like i keep making mistakes because i forget halfway through that i am supposed to be weakening the argument and i look for an answer that strengthens it. so frustrating
@CamilleChmura What has been working for me is to find the conclusion and go hunting for an answer that directly attacks it. I read the conclusion and in my head go "therefore" then read answer choices and see if it attacks it.
I don't know if that's helpful lol, but that's what my approach has been.
Isn't D really really weak? For it to actually do anything to the argument, we have to assume that the proportion of jogging injuries in the population is not insignificant — because if it WERE insignificant, then the number of injury-prone joggers who self-selected into Group 1 would also be insignificant. But this is a pretty big assumption.
D would be much stronger if the relationship was reversed — "the more likely a jogger is to develop the habit of performing stretches before jogging, the more prone they are to jogging injuries." Were this to be the case, there would be much more reason to suppose that Group 1 is composed of, to a significant degree, injury-prone joggers.
I guess D is still the best answer out of a crop of bad answer choices. But to me it seems only just barely. Am I overthinking this?
@djlectic The way you flipped that would seemingly strengthen the argument, not make D a better answer choice. The way you worded that would imply that stretching causes one to become more injury prone. The conclusion of the stimmy was that stretching does not prevent injury. If stretching causes one to become more injury prone, then certainly it doesn’t prevent injury.
Also, I would not consider answer choice D to be a “really, really weak” answer. Answer choice D weakens the argument in the stimmy by introducing a confounding variable in the study being discussed. In this case, the confounding variable is that one group is more prone to injury than the other. If one group is predisposed to injury, then it is not good science to compare their injury rate to a group that is less prone to injury. The researchers would have needed to control for both groups predisposition to injury, or weight their data to compensate for the bias in their sampling method. We do not know how much of an impact this had on the results of the study, but we do not need to since it was not addressed at all in the argument. As long as there is a confounding variable that may reasonably impact the results of the study, then we can take the conclusion with a grain of salt. It’s much less reasonable to assume that the difference in injury predisposition is insignificant without any evidence than it is to be skeptical of a study/argument that did not address this confounding variable at all. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it’s not a “must be false” question. It just needs to weaken the argument, which it does reasonably well, especially compared to the other answers.
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132 comments
If you chose C, I can definitely see why. I liked C and D and thought D was a better fit.
Got it on BR. Gotta be careful about making hidden assumptions!
I messed up cause i missed "habitually" in the stimulus :(
Was briefly tempted by A but got it right and under time LEZZ GOOOOOOO
Hi! I got the correct answer, but I wanted to clarify my thinking. For the weaken experiment questions are we trying to figure out/find the AC that proves the stimulus hypothesis wrong? For instance, he is saying stretching doesn’t have an effect, so I should look for something that says stretching does actually have an effect? Thank you!
@IsabellaP Also, are we supposed to assume that unless they specifically state in the stimulus "random large selection for the control and treatment group" that they didn't do so, and this could be a flaw in the argument (if presented as an answer choice)?
@IsabellaP NOT "proves the stimulus hypothesis wrong". WEAKENS the hypothesis. Maybe the hypothesis is still true, but we have given a valid reason to call it into question. ie, weakend it. So don't rule out an answer options just because it does not definitively rule out the hypothesis.
Hard question. Rare case of outside knowledge being harmful. In this case I knew intuitively that experiments structured like this are prone to errors due to the bias in who performs the activity tending to be people who experience the effect you're looking for, but did not actually understand why the answer I chose was correct.
I've noticed a couple of questions where the writers will prey on the scientific intuition of STEM majors and this one threw me for a loop because it was exactly what I thought.
@ClarEmile What? You were confused because you knew the answer? Also a STEM major, and also knew intuitively that was one of the flaws with this type of study, so went into hunt mode, found it, and got it done much under time. Don't be afraid to use your outside knowledge. Unless the question painstakingly builds a hypothetical world which differs from ours, then you can absolutely use real-world knowledge to avoid naive assumptions. Its an advantage, not a hinderance.
I didn't even have to waste time on the other answers. Skimmed them maybe, but was able to find a very strong weakness of the study, and move one. Take advantage of that.
This one was really difficult. I'm getting all the weaken questions wrong :( I chose C
Oh man not my STEM degree coming in handy.
I chose C Because I said to myself: Most doesn't equal All. So the remaining injuries could very likely be joint or tightness injuries which flexibility from stretching will help. I confused possibility logic with argument impact logic. I should have just focused on what was stated in the choice. Great question to learn from!!!
:( I chose C
@amara C is temping but strengthens the argument (it wouldn't matter anyways) instead of weaken it
I'm going to be 100% honest, I used chat GPT to help me understand this better Lol.. and it truly did help. I got it right in BR, wrong first attempt. I understood the stimulus, it's the AC's that were throwing me completely off.
At least my stem background helps with these questions
@ArdenAmarelo And my philosophy background helped me with this.
@suhyahn My finance background is crying in the back.
Wow this question was really hard for me. First time I got both regular and BR wrong
maybe this is me trying to cope but the only reason I got this one wrong was because, for some reason, in the middle of reading the answer choices, my brain switched to "you're finding a strengthener", chose C, and I just ran with it like ohhhhh brotherrrr
@xyzana I do this all the time. Its the biggest weakness I have right now. Especially the EXCEPT questions
Fun Question. Not too bad.
This feels like a bad joke
i got it right through process of elimination
i hate this test with a passion
@ramrob2k12 still haven't seen how this test will make me a better lawyer
I had the biggest "OHHHHHH'" moment at time 3:18. Like how did I miss that.
is it reasonable to assume that every time a stim describing an experiment does not state, "the participants were assigned into two groups" that the participants self-selected?
i dont know why i have such a hard time reading these questions. i feel like i keep making mistakes because i forget halfway through that i am supposed to be weakening the argument and i look for an answer that strengthens it. so frustrating
Could someone please share their process for answering questions like this?
@CamilleChmura What has been working for me is to find the conclusion and go hunting for an answer that directly attacks it. I read the conclusion and in my head go "therefore" then read answer choices and see if it attacks it.
I don't know if that's helpful lol, but that's what my approach has been.
Isn't D really really weak? For it to actually do anything to the argument, we have to assume that the proportion of jogging injuries in the population is not insignificant — because if it WERE insignificant, then the number of injury-prone joggers who self-selected into Group 1 would also be insignificant. But this is a pretty big assumption.
D would be much stronger if the relationship was reversed — "the more likely a jogger is to develop the habit of performing stretches before jogging, the more prone they are to jogging injuries." Were this to be the case, there would be much more reason to suppose that Group 1 is composed of, to a significant degree, injury-prone joggers.
I guess D is still the best answer out of a crop of bad answer choices. But to me it seems only just barely. Am I overthinking this?
@djlectic The way you flipped that would seemingly strengthen the argument, not make D a better answer choice. The way you worded that would imply that stretching causes one to become more injury prone. The conclusion of the stimmy was that stretching does not prevent injury. If stretching causes one to become more injury prone, then certainly it doesn’t prevent injury.
Also, I would not consider answer choice D to be a “really, really weak” answer. Answer choice D weakens the argument in the stimmy by introducing a confounding variable in the study being discussed. In this case, the confounding variable is that one group is more prone to injury than the other. If one group is predisposed to injury, then it is not good science to compare their injury rate to a group that is less prone to injury. The researchers would have needed to control for both groups predisposition to injury, or weight their data to compensate for the bias in their sampling method. We do not know how much of an impact this had on the results of the study, but we do not need to since it was not addressed at all in the argument. As long as there is a confounding variable that may reasonably impact the results of the study, then we can take the conclusion with a grain of salt. It’s much less reasonable to assume that the difference in injury predisposition is insignificant without any evidence than it is to be skeptical of a study/argument that did not address this confounding variable at all. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it’s not a “must be false” question. It just needs to weaken the argument, which it does reasonably well, especially compared to the other answers.
Hope this helps!
im so confused bro I didn't even consider that answer as being remotely valid