Self-study
Support After monitoring blood levels of lycopene (a nutrient found in some fruits and vegetables) in 1,000 middle-aged study participants over a 12-year period, researchers found that participants with low levels of lycopene were more than twice as likely as those with high levels to have a stroke during that period. ████████ ████████ ███████ ███ ████ ██ ███████
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author hypothesizes that lycopene reduces the risk of stroke. This is based on a study of 1,000 middle-aged people over a 12 year period, which found that participants with low levels of lycopene were more likely to have a stroke than participants higher levels of lycopene.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes there’s no other explanation for the correlation between lycopene and reduced risk of stroke.
17.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████ ███ █████████
a
Most fruits and ██████████ ████ ███ ████ ██ ████████ ████ ███████ ████ ██████ ██ ███████ █████ █████████ ████ ███ ███████ ██████ ██ ██████ ███ ████ ██ ███████
This suggests a potential alternate explanation for the correlation observed in the study. Maybe what reduced risk of stroke was not higher levels of lycopene, but other nutrients found in fruits/veggies that contain lycopene.
Alternate explanation
Alternate explanation
Weaken: Introduce or support an alternate explanation for a phenomenon.
Strengthen: Helps to eliminate an alternate explanation for a phenomenon.
b
Countries in which ██████ ███████ ███████████ ██████████ ██ █████████████ ██████ ███ ██████████ █████████ ████ █████ █████ ██ ██████ ████ █████ ██████████
This strengthens the argument by providing evidence that shows the correlation observed in the study is found more broadly, too.
Directionally wrong
Directionally wrong
Answers that, if they have any effect, do the opposite of what we want (weaken when we're trying to strengthen, or strengthen when we're trying to weaken).
c
Middle-aged people typically ████ █████ ████████ ██████ ████ █████ ███████
This doesn’t have any impact, since we don’t know whether middle-aged people are more or less likely to have strokes than young adults. Even if we did, this might strengthen, because middle-aged people probably have more strokes.
d
Study participants with ████ ██████ ██ ████████ █████████ ██ ████████ █████ ███ ████████ ██ ██████ ███ ██████████ ██ █████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ █████████
This might explain how the participants with high levels of lycopene got their high levels of lycopene. But it doesn’t suggest there are alternate explanations for the lower risk of stroke.
Failed alternate explanation
Failed alternate explanation
Weaken Qs: Answers that try to introduce an alternate explanation, but fall short, or try to explain a different phenomenon.
Strengthen Qs: Answers that try to eliminate an alternate explanation, but fall short, or try to eliminate an explanation for a different phenomenon.
e
There was wide █████████ ██ ████████ ██████ █████ █████ █████████████
We know there was a correlation between higher lycopene and lower risk of stroke. This doesn’t mean everyone had similar levels of lycopene. So, (E) is consistent with the author’s reasoning.
Illusory inconsistency
Illusory inconsistency
Answer is attractive because it seems to (but doesn't actually) contradict the premises or conclusion. In other words, it feints an attack on the premises or conclusion. If correlation is present, the answer choice is often merely an outlier datapoint, which is actually entirely consistent with the correlation.