Here I was focusing solely on the conclusion and trying to see which AC weakened the assertion that sunscreen is unlikely to reduce skin cancer. From what I thought I've found in the past, the right AC typically includes generally the same kind of language from the conclusion, but I guess I was mistaken and need to pay more attention to that referential phrasing of "this" in the conclusion.
Idk if this is the right way to go about it but using this analogy helped it click for me:
I am trying to argue with someone who is saying that sunscreen does NOT prevent skin cancer. I want to prove this person wrong and help them think of another reason as to why their argument doesn't make sense.
We are looking at 2000-2025 as an era where sunscreen use was on the rise but also skin cancer rates.
Me, being someone who was born in the 80s (example) spent a lot of time outside as a kid and HATED when my mom would tell me to put on sunscreen, so I never did. I was okay with being a lobster for days.
We are now in 2026 and I have skin cancer. This person I am arguing with is confused as to how I could have gotten skin cancer. He stills thinks that sunscreen does NOT prevent skin cancer.
I tell him: "Well my doc asked if I spent a lot of time outside as a kid, I said yes and they asked if I used sun screen and I would say no. I hated using it. Doc tells me if I had used it, perhaps I wouldn't have skin cancer OR the cancer would be less severe. You're SOL, sorry"
Doc's prognosis weaken's the person's stance that I'm arguing with. Doc is saying that my actions from DECADES ago have resulted in consequences that I have to live with today. FAFO
B) didn't fit to me because the stimulus says "skin cancer...has continued to GROW." If B) were true, wouldn't it be more likely that cases of skin cancer would stay the SAME for the past 25 years, not GROW? I understand the reasoning behind B) and it is the strongest answer, but in my view the stimulus should not say cases increased, rather that they stayed constant despite increased sunscreen usage.
Conclusion: Sunscreen is UNLIKELY to reduce risk of skin cancer
Why (support): over 25 years, skin cancer incidences have increased despite people using sunscreen.
Assumption (or how to analyze this): sunscreen COULD, in fact, help reduce skin cancer; people may get skin cancer for reasons beyond just using (or not) sunscreen [i.e. people may use sunscreen and still get cancer for other reasons]
Answer choice B (paraphrased): "old people develop skin cancer because of sunburns they got when they were young" --> Exactly: people develop skin cancer because of things like Age and Old sunburns, so whether they use sunscreen is irrelevant (they are still more susceptible; the fact that one in this category could use sunscreen and (God forbid) still get cancer isn't due to the sunscreen being ineffective, it's because they had a pre-existing condition..
I knew A and C were wrong. I was pretty sure D was wrong. B felt wrong at first blush because I totally forgot about the 25 years mentioned at the beginning of the stimulus. E seemed like the best option, followed by D, although D seemed off. I chose E on my initial take and D in my blind review. I was totally stumped until I got to the explanation and it mentioned the 25 years, and then it made total sense to me. I guess I probably should have re-read the stimulus in my blind review haha, but I felt very confident in my understanding of the conclusion / question stem going into the blind review, so I didn't. Sigh.
I don't even know why this question stumped me so bad but I literally spent an hour here maybe more. So i applaud myself for understanding the correct answer but I'm so f***ing annoyed at myself. I would've skipped this damn question in a real exam
I was between B & E bc i thought if only those who believed they were susceptible to skin cancer used sunscreen then there was a high population of ppl who probably needed to wear sunscreen but didn't.. hence the increased amount of ppl w skin cancer. However, i didn't have to jump through as many hoops for B.
Dang it took me 5 minutes to be comfortable with B. I knew it was right but when placed against E it was a challenge. The only reason I didn't pick E was because of the word believe.
E is wrong because just because someone believes themselves to be X doesn't mean that belief is valid.
This question got me because it felt like B didn't address the GROWTH of skin cancer incidents, only explaining why there would still be skin cancer despite sunscreen. I guess that's why the question says most weakens and not destroys.
I fell for the bait of E but would have picked B if i didn't let myself get finessed.
I saw B to be correct in my initial review by creating a causal chain that would show how those who were very old developed SC because they got sunburn from not using SS when they were very young. In essence stating that the causal link was from not using sunscreen.
/use ss when VY -c-> more sunburns -c-> greater chance of SC
use ss when VY -c-> less sunburn -c-> less chance of SC
Although this reasoning helped me to justify B as the correct answer, I see how it is different from JY's explanation where he attacks the correlation, most specifically the time gap difference between B and the stimulus.
I guess you could say I was attacking the conclusion although I did address the reasoning but I would like to see if someone could explain how this method I employed was not used by JY.
If, so on the basis that it is flawed, what is the flaw and how would it create problems for me on harder questions following up with why the focus on correlation is more effective for these types going forward
I had B selected as my answer choice and talked myself into answer choice E because it felt like B was introducing information not provided by the stimulus. In hindsight, THAT'S KIND OF THE POINT OF (S)/(w) SOMETIMES.
"If this were true, which one would MOST strengthen/weaken?"
Are there any indicators that "Skin cancer generally develops among the very old as a result of sunburns experienced when very young" means "skin cancer as a whole is most common in the very old..." versus "skin cancer that is seen specifically in the old develops for these reasons" ?? I interpreted it as the latter and that's why I got this question wrong.
I literally just wrote this in my notes from the last question, yet I still picked E...
"Beware! Wrong answers often have X Believes _ . This does not mean what they believe is true, just that X believes it..."
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127 comments
YAYAY! Got it right:)
Here I was focusing solely on the conclusion and trying to see which AC weakened the assertion that sunscreen is unlikely to reduce skin cancer. From what I thought I've found in the past, the right AC typically includes generally the same kind of language from the conclusion, but I guess I was mistaken and need to pay more attention to that referential phrasing of "this" in the conclusion.
Anyone have a better explanation for why D is not correct?
20 is not very young... :(
argument is ignoring another factor that could cause skin cancer and jumping to conclusion that sunscreen must be evil
Idk if this is the right way to go about it but using this analogy helped it click for me:
I am trying to argue with someone who is saying that sunscreen does NOT prevent skin cancer. I want to prove this person wrong and help them think of another reason as to why their argument doesn't make sense.
We are looking at 2000-2025 as an era where sunscreen use was on the rise but also skin cancer rates.
Me, being someone who was born in the 80s (example) spent a lot of time outside as a kid and HATED when my mom would tell me to put on sunscreen, so I never did. I was okay with being a lobster for days.
We are now in 2026 and I have skin cancer. This person I am arguing with is confused as to how I could have gotten skin cancer. He stills thinks that sunscreen does NOT prevent skin cancer.
I tell him: "Well my doc asked if I spent a lot of time outside as a kid, I said yes and they asked if I used sun screen and I would say no. I hated using it. Doc tells me if I had used it, perhaps I wouldn't have skin cancer OR the cancer would be less severe. You're SOL, sorry"
Doc's prognosis weaken's the person's stance that I'm arguing with. Doc is saying that my actions from DECADES ago have resulted in consequences that I have to live with today. FAFO
B) didn't fit to me because the stimulus says "skin cancer...has continued to GROW." If B) were true, wouldn't it be more likely that cases of skin cancer would stay the SAME for the past 25 years, not GROW? I understand the reasoning behind B) and it is the strongest answer, but in my view the stimulus should not say cases increased, rather that they stayed constant despite increased sunscreen usage.
I finally got a Weaking question right! Finally!!! yay!!!!
man i was getting all the questions right but this one ruined my streak smh
Think of it this way:
Conclusion: Sunscreen is UNLIKELY to reduce risk of skin cancer
Why (support): over 25 years, skin cancer incidences have increased despite people using sunscreen.
Assumption (or how to analyze this): sunscreen COULD, in fact, help reduce skin cancer; people may get skin cancer for reasons beyond just using (or not) sunscreen [i.e. people may use sunscreen and still get cancer for other reasons]
Answer choice B (paraphrased): "old people develop skin cancer because of sunburns they got when they were young" --> Exactly: people develop skin cancer because of things like Age and Old sunburns, so whether they use sunscreen is irrelevant (they are still more susceptible; the fact that one in this category could use sunscreen and (God forbid) still get cancer isn't due to the sunscreen being ineffective, it's because they had a pre-existing condition..
I knew A and C were wrong. I was pretty sure D was wrong. B felt wrong at first blush because I totally forgot about the 25 years mentioned at the beginning of the stimulus. E seemed like the best option, followed by D, although D seemed off. I chose E on my initial take and D in my blind review. I was totally stumped until I got to the explanation and it mentioned the 25 years, and then it made total sense to me. I guess I probably should have re-read the stimulus in my blind review haha, but I felt very confident in my understanding of the conclusion / question stem going into the blind review, so I didn't. Sigh.
I don't even know why this question stumped me so bad but I literally spent an hour here maybe more. So i applaud myself for understanding the correct answer but I'm so f***ing annoyed at myself. I would've skipped this damn question in a real exam
The easiest one yet
I was between B & E bc i thought if only those who believed they were susceptible to skin cancer used sunscreen then there was a high population of ppl who probably needed to wear sunscreen but didn't.. hence the increased amount of ppl w skin cancer. However, i didn't have to jump through as many hoops for B.
Dang it took me 5 minutes to be comfortable with B. I knew it was right but when placed against E it was a challenge. The only reason I didn't pick E was because of the word believe.
E is wrong because just because someone believes themselves to be X doesn't mean that belief is valid.
got it but 40 seconds over YIKES! considered E way too long
B seems completely irrelevant to the question. This one makes very little sense to me.
This question got me because it felt like B didn't address the GROWTH of skin cancer incidents, only explaining why there would still be skin cancer despite sunscreen. I guess that's why the question says most weakens and not destroys.
I fell for the bait of E but would have picked B if i didn't let myself get finessed.
I saw B to be correct in my initial review by creating a causal chain that would show how those who were very old developed SC because they got sunburn from not using SS when they were very young. In essence stating that the causal link was from not using sunscreen.
/use ss when VY -c-> more sunburns -c-> greater chance of SC
use ss when VY -c-> less sunburn -c-> less chance of SC
Although this reasoning helped me to justify B as the correct answer, I see how it is different from JY's explanation where he attacks the correlation, most specifically the time gap difference between B and the stimulus.
I guess you could say I was attacking the conclusion although I did address the reasoning but I would like to see if someone could explain how this method I employed was not used by JY.
If, so on the basis that it is flawed, what is the flaw and how would it create problems for me on harder questions following up with why the focus on correlation is more effective for these types going forward
So B is the correct answer as it weakens the time slot in the phenomenon?
this is dumb i feel like i didnt choose B because it felt irrelevant
I had B selected as my answer choice and talked myself into answer choice E because it felt like B was introducing information not provided by the stimulus. In hindsight, THAT'S KIND OF THE POINT OF (S)/(w) SOMETIMES.
"If this were true, which one would MOST strengthen/weaken?"
Are there any indicators that "Skin cancer generally develops among the very old as a result of sunburns experienced when very young" means "skin cancer as a whole is most common in the very old..." versus "skin cancer that is seen specifically in the old develops for these reasons" ?? I interpreted it as the latter and that's why I got this question wrong.
This took me so long.. but I got it right on the first attempt. lol
I literally just wrote this in my notes from the last question, yet I still picked E...
"Beware! Wrong answers often have X Believes _ . This does not mean what they believe is true, just that X believes it..."