PT132.S4.Q5

PrepTest 132 - Section 4 - Question 5

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Researchers announced recently that Support 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. ████ █████ ████ █████ █████████ ██ ████████ ██ ██████ █ ████████ ████ ██ ██████████ ████ ████ ███████

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis

The author's conclusion is found in the last sentence, beginning with "this shows that": using sunscreen is unlikely to reduce a person's risk of sun-induced skin cancer. This claim is based on research showing that even though sunscreen use has been becoming more common over the last 25 years, rates of skin cancer have also increased in that time.

Notable Assumptions

Based on a positive correlation between sunscreen use and skin cancer, the author assumes the former isn’t preventing or mitigating the latter. This assumes rates of skin cancer would not have been even higher without sunscreen. For instance, people might be spending significantly more time in the sun because they are wearing sunscreen, or a change in the atmosphere might be letting in more harmful rays from the sun. These additional factors could push skin cancer rates up even while sunscreen does reduce each person's risk of cancer. The author also assumes that skin cancer rates seen over the last 25 years are related to people wearing or not wearing sunscreen during those 25 years, rather than, for instance, being the long-term effects of sun exposure people had prior to that 25-year period.

Show answer
5.

Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████ ███ █████████

a

Most people who ████████ █ █████████ ███████ ████ ███ ████████ ███ ████ █████████ █████ ██████████

This answer choice is trying to suggest that people aren't using the best sunscreen available. But the stimulus doesn't say anything about price differences among sunscreens, or whether the most expensive sunscreens are more effective. The argument is about sunscreen use in general and its connection to skin cancer rates. So this answer choice doesn't apply to the stimulus.

1%
b

Skin cancer generally ████████ █████ ███ ████ ███ ██ █ ██████ ██ ████████ ███████████ ████ ████ ██████

If this is true, then most cases of skin cancer affect older people as a result of sunburns from the beginning of their lifetimes. In other words, the skin cancer rates observed during the researchers' study were likely mostly caused by sun exposure that happened well before the 25-year period began. In other words, the increased rates of skin cancer during those 25 years have little to do with whether or not people were using sunscreen during that time. The effects of the increased rates of sunscreen use are likely to show up much further down the line. This strongly weakens the link between the evidence in the stimulus and the author's conclusion.

Alternate explanation
74%
c

The development of ██████████ ██ ██████████████ █████████ ███ █████ ████ ████████ █████████ ██ ███████████████

This doesn't weaken the author's argument. It's possible that the dermatologists' research was inaccurate. We need something that tells us why the positive correlation between skin cancer and increased sunscreen use doesn't actually mean that sunscreen is ineffective.

1%
d

People who know ████ ████ ███ ██████████ ███████████ ██ ████ ██████ ███ █████████ ███████████ ██ █████ █ █████ ██████ ██ ████ ██ ███ ████

This answer choice only tells us that one particular group of people is likely to stay out of the sun. That doesn't tell us anything about sunscreen use in general and increased rates of skin cancer. This doesn't weaken the argument.

Failed alternate explanation
4%
e

Those who use ██████████ ████ █████████ ███ ██████ ███ ███████ ██████████ ██ ██ ████ ███████████ ██ ████ ███████

Whatever people believe about themselves, we're interested in what actually happens: does using the sunscreen reduce their risk of skin cancer or not? This answer choice doesn't give us that information, and doesn't weaken the author’s claim.

Failed alternate explanation
20%

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