Self-study
Advice columnist: Several scientific studies have shown that, Support when participating in competitive sports, those people who have recently been experiencing major stress in their lives are several times more likely to suffer serious injuries than are other participants in competitive sports. █████ ███████ ███████ ██████ ██ ███████ ██ ██████ ████████ ██████ ██ ████ ██ █ ██████ ███ ██████ ████ ███████
Summary
The columnist concludes that no sports should be used to cope with stress. As support, she says that recently stressed people are much more likely than other people to injure themselves in competitive sports, and risking injury is unwise.
Notable Assumptions
The author establishes why competitive sports shouldn’t be used to cope with stress— because stressed people are much more likely to injure themselves in competitive sports— but she then jumps to the conclusion that recently stressed people should avoid all sports.
She assumes that since recently stressed people should avoid competitive sports, they should also avoid all sports. We need a principle or rule that helps justify her reasoning by satisfying this assumption.
12.
Which one of the following ███████████ ██ ██████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ █████████ ██ ███ ██████ ███████████ █████████
a
If people recently █████ ██████ ██████ █████ █ ██████ ██ ██████████ ██ █ ███████ █████ ████ ██████ █████ ███ ██████████ ██ ████ █████
We know recently stressed people should avoid competitive sports because they’re more likely to get hurt. If recently stressed people who should avoid a subset of an activity should avoid all of that activity, this gives us reason to believe that they should avoid all sports.
b
A method for ██████ ████ ██████ ██████ ██ ████ ████ ██ ██ ███ ████ █████████ ██ ██████████ ██████
The columnist is arguing that sports should not be used as a method for coping with stress because recently stressed people are more likely to get injured in competitive sports, not because sports haven’t been subjected to scientific study.
c
People who have ███ ████ ████████████ █████ ██████ ██ █████ █████ ██████ ███████████ ██ ███████████ ███████
The columnist’s argument is about how recently stressed people should not participate in any sports. Determining whether other people should participate in competitive sports doesn’t help to justify her argument.
d
When people have ████ █████ ████████████ ███████ ████ ██████ ██████ ██ ███████████ ██████████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ███████
This doesn’t support the columnist’s argument, it contradicts her argument. She argues that recently stressed people should not engage in competitive sports (or any other sports) to relieve their stress.
e
People with a ███████ ██ ██████ ████████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ██████████ ██ ████ ████ ████████ ████ █████ ███████
This is too narrow to justify the columnist’s reasoning. (E) says that recently stressed people with a history of sports injuries should avoid sports, but the columnist says that all recently stressed people should avoid sports.