Self-study
A retrospective study is a scientific study that tries to determine the causes of subjects' present characteristics by looking for significant connections between the present characteristics of subjects and what happened to those subjects in the past, before the study began. ███████ █████████████ ███████ ██ █████ ████████ ████ ███ ███ █████████ ███████ █████ █████ ███ ██████ ████████ ████ ███████ ██████ ████████ █████████ ███ ██████ ██ █████ █████████ ███████ ████████████████
Summary
The author concludes that retrospective studies can’t reliably accomplish their goal (determine causes of present characteristics) because they must use the subjects’ self-reported data.
Missing Connection
The conclusion determines that these studies aren’t reliable, but the only support for this is that they use subjects’ self-reported data. We can validly draw the conclusion if we know that self-reported data isn’t reliable.
9.
Which one of the following, ██ ████████ ███████ ███ ██████████ ██████████ ██ ██ ████████ ██████
a
Whether or not █ █████ ██ █████ ████████ ███ ████████ █████████ ███ ██████ ██ █████ █████████ ███████ ███████████████ ███ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ █████ ████ █████ ████ ██████████ ███████ █████ ███ █████████ ██████
This deals with the right core elements, but isn’t strong enough, and has other flaws as well.
Even with a stronger rephrasing for the first portion, e.g. “... subjects’ present characteristics depend on...”, it would still be wrong because we were not told the reports are inaccurate (or to what extent).
b
A retrospective study ██████ ████████ █████████ ███ ██████ ██ █████ █████████ ███████ ███████████████ ██████ █████ █████ ████████████ ███████ ███ ███████ ███████████████ ██ ███ ████████ ███ ████ ████████ ██ █████ ████████ ██ ███ █████
Irrelevant. We do not know if there are any correlations or not.
c
In studies of █████ ████████ ████ ███████ ██ ████ ███████████ ███████ █████████ ███████ ███████████████ ███ ████ ████████ ██ █████ ████████ ██ ███ █████ ███ █████████ ███████ █████ █████ ███ █████ ███ ██████ ███████████ ██ ███████████
This is a direct link from retrospective studies and an unavoidable part of those studies (self-reported data) to inaccuracy. We can conclude that these studies’ determinations aren’t reliable.
d
If a study ██ █████ ████████ ████ ████ ████████ ███████ █████ ███ █████████ ██████ ████ ████ █████ ███ ████████ █████████ ███ ██████ ██ █████ █████████ ███████ ████████████████
We are trying to conclude that the studies cannot reliably determine the cause, not that they can. Also, we don’t know if the reports are accurate or not.
e
Every scientific study ██ █████ ███████████ ████ ███ ███████████ ███████████ ███████ ███ ███████ ███████████████ ██ ████████ ███ ████ ████████ ██ █████ ████████ ██ ███ ████ ████ ███ ███ █████████ ███████ █████ █████ ███ ██████
The conclusion is only about retrospective studies. It isn’t about all studies that look at these connections.