Self-study
Support People who have experienced a traumatic event but who did not subsequently develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) tend to produce higher levels of the hormone cortisol when exposed to stress than do people who have not experienced traumatic events. ████ ████████ ████ ████████████ █ █████████ █████ ███ ██████ ███ ████ ████████ ███ ████████ ██ ████████ ██ ███████
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author hypothesizes that experiencing a traumatic event can affect how much cortisol one produces in response to stress. This is based on the fact that people who have experienced a traumatic event but don’t develop PTSD tend to produce higher levels of cortisol in times of stress than do people who haven’t experienced traumatic events.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that people who have experienced traumatic events without developing PTSD are representative of people who have experienced traumatic events generally (i.e. including those who did develop PTSD) with respect to the amount of cortisol produced in times of stress. The author also assumes that there isn’t another explanation for the correlation observed between cortisol amounts produced and experiencing a traumatic event without PTSD.
24.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████ ███ ████████ ██████
a
Medical conditions sometimes ██████ ███ ████ ████████ ██████ ███ ████ ███ ███████████ █ █████████ █████ ███████ ██ ████████ ██ ███████
“Sometimes” could just be a single occasion. We don’t have any reason to think these conditions occur often enough to explain the lower average cortisol production of the group of people who haven’t experienced traumatic events.
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.
b
Producing more cortisol ████ ███████ ██ ████████ ██ ██████ █████ ███████ █ ██████ ████ ██████████ ████ ██ █ ██████ ██ ████████████ █ █████████ ██████
This raises the potential of reverse causation. Maybe people who start off producing more cortisol are more likely to avoid PTSD after trauma. This might explain why the trauma + no PTSD group has higher cortisol production than the group that didn’t experience trauma.
Alternate explanation
Alternate explanation
Weaken: Introduce or support an alternate explanation for a phenomenon.
Strengthen: Helps to eliminate an alternate explanation for a phenomenon.
c
People experiencing a █████████ █████ ███████ ████ ████████ ████ ████ █████ █████ ████ ██████ █████████ ██ ███████
If anything, this might support the alleged connection between traumatic events and producing more cortisol in times of stress.
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).
d
Many effective treatments ███ ████ ███ ████████ ██ ██████ ███ ████ ████████ █████ ████ ████ ███████ ████ ███████ ██ ███████
The comparison in the stimulus involves people who don’t have PTSD. So they wouldn’t be taking the medications described in (D).
e
Experiencing a traumatic █████ ███ ██████ ███ █████ ████ ████████ █████████ █████████ ██ ████ █████ █████████ ████ █████████
This strengthens the argument by providing a causal mechanism for how experiencing trauma might lead to more cortisol production in times of stress.
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).