Self-study
Psychologist: In an experiment, Support business managers who normally drank coffee on a daily basis were given more than their normal amount. ███ ████████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████████ ███ ████████████ ███ ████ ████ ████ ██ █████████ ██ ████ ████ ███████████ ████ ██████ ██████████ ███████ ██████████ ██████████ ███████ ████ ██ ███████████ ███████████ ████ ██ ██████ ████ █████ ████████████ ████ ████████ ████ ██████ ████ █████ ███████ ███████ ██████████ ████████
Summary
The psychologist concludes that drinking more coffee than usual impairs management ability. The basis for this conclusion is that integrating information is more important than speed, and after drinking more coffee than usual, managers got faster but worse at integrating information.
Notable Assumptions
The key assumption is that coffee doesn’t have positive effects that outweigh the negative impact on integrating information. We don’t know the size of the effects on speed and integrating information - maybe coffee makes managers 50% faster but 2% less effective at integrating information. Maybe coffee has some other impact that wasn’t even discussed in the stimulus — like making managers work longer hours because they are more awake. Overall, we need to know that the negative effect on integrating information isn’t outweighed by some positive impact.
20.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ██ █████ ███ ██████████████ ████████ ████████
a
The business managers ██ ███ ██████████ ████ █████████ ████ ████ █████ ██ ████ ███ █████ ██ █████ ████ █████████ ███████████ ███ ██ █████ ███████ ██ █████████ ████████████
It doesn’t matter whether there are differences in each manager’s speed and information — what matters is the difference between when they have a normal amount of coffee and more than a normal amount of coffee.
b
Drinking less coffee ████ █████ █████ ███ ██████ █ █████████ ███████ ██████████ ███████ ██ ████ ██ █████ ████████ ████ ██████ ████ ██████
The argument only deals with what happens when managers drink more coffee than usual. It could be the case that drinking less coffee than usual has a bigger negative impact than drinking more coffee — the conclusion still holds as long as the latter has any negative impact.
c
There is no █████ ██████ ████ ██ ████ █████████ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██████████ ████ ██████ █████ ██ ██████████ ███████████ ██ ███████ ██ █████████ ███
It’s not just about the existence of other factors, it’s also about whether drinking more coffee than usual impacts them, and by how much. It might be that communication is a more important factor, but not impacted by coffee. The conclusion could still be true.
d
In the experiment, ████████ ████ ██████ ████ █████ ███ ███ ████ ██████████ ███████ ██ ███████ ██████████ ███████ ████ ██████████ ███ █████████ ██ ███████ ██ █████████ ████ ████████████
If drinking more coffee had some positive impact on management ability that outweighed its negative impact on integrating information, then drinking more coffee than usual would not impair overall management ability. Thus, (D) is necessary.
e
The amount of ██████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ████ █████████ ██████ ███████████ ███ █████ ██ █████ ███ █████████ ███ ████████████
It doesn’t matter if there is some other factor that has a bigger influence on speed, because it wouldn’t change the size of the impact that coffee has. We just care about how much coffee impacts speed, not how it stacks up with other factors that impact speed.