If answer choice (E) had instead said "correctly believe", could it be the correct answer choice because it presents an alternative explanation of the form that we talked about with the dramamine/seasickness example? For example, here the X factor of being more susceptible to skin cancer is correlated with both increased use of sunscreen and increased rates of skin cancer, so it appears as though there's a positive correlation between sunscreen use and skin cancer?
Okay, y'all, this is low-key throwing my brain through the wringer. So I remember when we did a weaken question that involved the joggers and stretching. The explanation was that those that stretch are already susceptible to stretching. Also the seasickness question. The idea is that those that use the drug are already susceptible to the sickness, so it's not that the drug doesn't work; it just slows it down. That is why I picked E the first time. I eventually got it right in the BR
Needless to say, I struggle with figuring out how/when to plug the concept above into the other weakening.
@BoluwatiwiAlabi Think about chronology as a method to evaluate the true hypothesis. The stimulus says that incidence has continued to increase in spite of increased use of sunscreen over the past 25 years - this is a specific time period. Ask yourself what happened before? Perhaps someone began using sunscreen at 50 but the damage had been done already in childhood. Therefore, despite using sunscreen, they have been diagnosed with cancer.
@BoluwatiwiAlabi I find the logic for the sea sickness and jogger tends to only apply to the experiments and comparing two groups.
This question doesn't compare those who wear sunscreen and those who don't. It's talking about a general trend, which makes it difficult to weaken or strengthen with the same logic.
I'm going to put this out there and I am struggling with weaken and strengthen questions. Out of all I've done I probably have gotten like 4 to 5 questions correctly.
Researchers announced recently that over the past 25 years the incidence of skin cancer caused by exposure to harmful rays from the sun has continued to grow in spite of the increasingly widespread use of sunscreens. This shows that using sunscreen is unlikely to reduce a person's risk of developing such skin cancer.
The research relies on time series data for incidence of skin cancer and use of sunscreens, and correlates both. We know that over the data period, sunscreen use has increased.
As this is a weaken question, a good thing to ask (alternative hypothesis) given those "clues": What changed in the population with increasing incidence of skin cancer over 25 years? (age!)
PT132.S4.Q5 Which one of the following, if true, most weakens the argument?
A) Most people who purchase a sunscreen product will not purchase the most expensive brand available.
Irrelevant. We don’t know the effectiveness of sunscreens across price ranges.
B) Skin cancer generally develops among the very old as a result of sunburns experienced when very young.
This meets our criteria of an alternative explanation because it tells about the changes in the population in question over the time period of the correlation, other than sunscreen use.
C) The development of sunscreens by pharmaceutical companies was based upon research conducted by dermatologists.
We don't know the population of sunscreens developed by pharmaceutical companies nor their effectiveness.
D) People who know that they are especially susceptible to skin cancer are generally disinclined to spend a large amount of time in the sun.
People protect themselves from the sun by hiding, which we don't know the population of. It doesn't tell us anything about the sunscreen's effectiveness. This does not affect the argument.
E) Those who use sunscreens most regularly are people who believe themselves to be most susceptible to skin cancer.
People protect themselves from the sun by making sure they use sunscreen, which we don't know the population of. It doesn't tell us anything about the sunscreen's effectiveness. This does not affect the argument.
I struggle sometimes and overthink answers when we are told not to extrapolate from the context given in the question and should avoid generalizations. I had the right answer the first time but changed it to another because of the use of generally.
I have only gotten 1 question done in the goal time, the entire time i've been studying using 7Sage.. I feel like the clock will be my biggest enemy :( Any suggestions?
@mrunordinary Keep practicing honestly, some questions you'll fly through no issues, others are meant to slow you down, save those for when you're with the easy ones.
@mrunordinary If you are highlighting or writing notes down on scratch paper, practice getting away from that (and moving to mental notes)! If it's the stimulus that's taking you a long time to read because you keep re-reading it, I'd say practice your comprehension and slowing down a tad to understand it on the first read through. The speed will come after that and more practice, don't lose the faith! :)
@mrunordinary You'll get faster the more you do these and can recognize the frames of the argument. I don't ever worry about time because I remember when I first started studying, every question would take me like 5 minutes. I'm kind of in the same boat as you because I am still always over time- but the more I do of one specific problem type, the more I can shave down my timing without even looking at the clock
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.
@LSAT1011 The argument relies on data over the past 25 years for its hypothesis. Answer D does not do anything to ruin the link between cancer increasing in the last 25 despite more sunscreen usage. In contrast, answer B says that skin cancer generally develops among the very old due to sunburns experienced when they were very young. This means that the increase in skin cancer is from the very old developing it. Combine that with the fact that it says it is from sunburns from when they were young, it means it is outside the past 25 years ruining the foundation of the argument.
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.
@AbigailFourspring I could be wrong in what youre trying to ask but the cases keep growing because if lets say 30 years ago I played outside everyday without sunscreen and then when it got popular 5 years later I started wearing it, I already caught skin cancer when I wasn't wearing sunscreen even if I started applying it I already have it. Maybe it marinated for 20+ years and when I'm older I just now got it. I still wore sunscreen but since I didn't wear it when I was young, applying it when I get older doesn't cancel out the effects of when I didn't use to wear it. obviously you have to multiply that by someone who was born the day after me, week after me, month after me, year after me, even a decade after me. Then you can reasonably say at least who knows maybe 1000 people are born a day and if every single one did the same thing as me the cases keep growing. Hope that helped!
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.
@pamelajkok exact same thing happened to me. i'm taking it as a gentle reminder to make sure i'm reading to thoroughly understand the stim and not just to rush to the answers.
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153 comments
If answer choice (E) had instead said "correctly believe", could it be the correct answer choice because it presents an alternative explanation of the form that we talked about with the dramamine/seasickness example? For example, here the X factor of being more susceptible to skin cancer is correlated with both increased use of sunscreen and increased rates of skin cancer, so it appears as though there's a positive correlation between sunscreen use and skin cancer?
Had B chosen first, don't know why I second guessed myself
Okay, y'all, this is low-key throwing my brain through the wringer. So I remember when we did a weaken question that involved the joggers and stretching. The explanation was that those that stretch are already susceptible to stretching. Also the seasickness question. The idea is that those that use the drug are already susceptible to the sickness, so it's not that the drug doesn't work; it just slows it down. That is why I picked E the first time. I eventually got it right in the BR
Needless to say, I struggle with figuring out how/when to plug the concept above into the other weakening.
Please help.
@BoluwatiwiAlabi I literally had the exact same thought process. Picked E then picked B in BR
@BoluwatiwiAlabi Think about chronology as a method to evaluate the true hypothesis. The stimulus says that incidence has continued to increase in spite of increased use of sunscreen over the past 25 years - this is a specific time period. Ask yourself what happened before? Perhaps someone began using sunscreen at 50 but the damage had been done already in childhood. Therefore, despite using sunscreen, they have been diagnosed with cancer.
@BoluwatiwiAlabi I find the logic for the sea sickness and jogger tends to only apply to the experiments and comparing two groups.
This question doesn't compare those who wear sunscreen and those who don't. It's talking about a general trend, which makes it difficult to weaken or strengthen with the same logic.
I'm going to put this out there and I am struggling with weaken and strengthen questions. Out of all I've done I probably have gotten like 4 to 5 questions correctly.
My own explanation:
Researchers announced recently that over the past 25 years the incidence of skin cancer caused by exposure to harmful rays from the sun has continued to grow in spite of the increasingly widespread use of sunscreens. This shows that using sunscreen is unlikely to reduce a person's risk of developing such skin cancer.
The research relies on time series data for incidence of skin cancer and use of sunscreens, and correlates both. We know that over the data period, sunscreen use has increased.
As this is a weaken question, a good thing to ask (alternative hypothesis) given those "clues": What changed in the population with increasing incidence of skin cancer over 25 years? (age!)
PT132.S4.Q5 Which one of the following, if true, most weakens the argument?
A) Most people who purchase a sunscreen product will not purchase the most expensive brand available.
Irrelevant. We don’t know the effectiveness of sunscreens across price ranges.
B) Skin cancer generally develops among the very old as a result of sunburns experienced when very young.
This meets our criteria of an alternative explanation because it tells about the changes in the population in question over the time period of the correlation, other than sunscreen use.
C) The development of sunscreens by pharmaceutical companies was based upon research conducted by dermatologists.
We don't know the population of sunscreens developed by pharmaceutical companies nor their effectiveness.
D) People who know that they are especially susceptible to skin cancer are generally disinclined to spend a large amount of time in the sun.
People protect themselves from the sun by hiding, which we don't know the population of. It doesn't tell us anything about the sunscreen's effectiveness. This does not affect the argument.
E) Those who use sunscreens most regularly are people who believe themselves to be most susceptible to skin cancer.
People protect themselves from the sun by making sure they use sunscreen, which we don't know the population of. It doesn't tell us anything about the sunscreen's effectiveness. This does not affect the argument.
this feels so obvious after watching the explanation
I struggle sometimes and overthink answers when we are told not to extrapolate from the context given in the question and should avoid generalizations. I had the right answer the first time but changed it to another because of the use of generally.
I got the question wrong and in blind review. I was doing so good but the weaken questions are hard for me
almost chose E but decided to go with my original B answer!
I have only gotten 1 question done in the goal time, the entire time i've been studying using 7Sage.. I feel like the clock will be my biggest enemy :( Any suggestions?
@mrunordinary Keep practicing honestly, some questions you'll fly through no issues, others are meant to slow you down, save those for when you're with the easy ones.
@mrunordinary You might be able to get extra time from a doctor.
@mrunordinary If you are highlighting or writing notes down on scratch paper, practice getting away from that (and moving to mental notes)! If it's the stimulus that's taking you a long time to read because you keep re-reading it, I'd say practice your comprehension and slowing down a tad to understand it on the first read through. The speed will come after that and more practice, don't lose the faith! :)
@beneley2k Don't rely on that. You think you can make it in life if you cheat your way through everything?
@mrunordinary You'll get faster the more you do these and can recognize the frames of the argument. I don't ever worry about time because I remember when I first started studying, every question would take me like 5 minutes. I'm kind of in the same boat as you because I am still always over time- but the more I do of one specific problem type, the more I can shave down my timing without even looking at the clock
@KateA It's absolutely not "cheating" if you have a learning disability and a doctor diagnoses you.
Crying because how am I supposed to understand and find that in 1 min and 25 secs? #help
First question I feel I really really dont get lowkey
I need to remember that just because the answer doesnt make sense doesnt mean it weakens the argument ugh
Got it on BR - I think I need to drill weaken the argument questions
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?
@LSAT1011 The argument relies on data over the past 25 years for its hypothesis. Answer D does not do anything to ruin the link between cancer increasing in the last 25 despite more sunscreen usage. In contrast, answer B says that skin cancer generally develops among the very old due to sunburns experienced when they were very young. This means that the increase in skin cancer is from the very old developing it. Combine that with the fact that it says it is from sunburns from when they were young, it means it is outside the past 25 years ruining the foundation of the argument.
20 is not very young... :(
@MichelleSap DOWNvoted
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.
@AbigailFourspring I could be wrong in what youre trying to ask but the cases keep growing because if lets say 30 years ago I played outside everyday without sunscreen and then when it got popular 5 years later I started wearing it, I already caught skin cancer when I wasn't wearing sunscreen even if I started applying it I already have it. Maybe it marinated for 20+ years and when I'm older I just now got it. I still wore sunscreen but since I didn't wear it when I was young, applying it when I get older doesn't cancel out the effects of when I didn't use to wear it. obviously you have to multiply that by someone who was born the day after me, week after me, month after me, year after me, even a decade after me. Then you can reasonably say at least who knows maybe 1000 people are born a day and if every single one did the same thing as me the cases keep growing. Hope that helped!
I finally got a Weaking question right! Finally!!! yay!!!!
man i was getting all the questions right but this one ruined my streak smh
@Ssss Facts
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.
@pamelajkok exact same thing happened to me. i'm taking it as a gentle reminder to make sure i'm reading to thoroughly understand the stim and not just to rush to the answers.