PT88.S4.Q22 - “Environmental factors, sports, teenagers...”

youbbyun

Can anyone explain this question for me? Have no idea why the right answer is right and how it weakens argument. Thanks

Admin note: edited title; please use the format of "PT#.S#.Q# - [brief description]"

Michael.Cinco

It's a correlation to causation error.

You're going to have to somehow show that the correlation they established isnt actually a causal relationship.

B does that by saying the traumatic events Did not cause these people to have higher cortisol levels. They already had that before they had their trauma (hence why they did not suffer from PTSD

youbbyun

@"Michael.Cinco" thanks for the help! I think what you mentioned was another question. 88.4.22 talks about teenagers, environmental factors, sports, etc. would love your thoughts!

Michael.Cinco

Oh yes that one.

The problem with the argument it is saying environmental factors does not have an impact on participation in sports but it never controls for other variables.

without controlling for other variables in an experiment it makes it very difficult to say if what you are observing is due to the single variable you are trying to measure or if it is due to the influence of other variables.

In this case answer choice B points out that the observations made about families and high school could be from inherent differences in the teens themselves so how can you conclude that environmental factors have zero impact?

youbbyun

@"Michael.Cinco" actually the answer key says the right answer is D. How does D weaken? Its such a weak statement.

Michael.Cinco

Ah you're right. Well stepping into Lsac's shoes what D is saying I suppose is that changing the environment does have an impact on participation in sports as shown by the participation changes across time and cultures.

I thought that answer was weak too obviously but I was stuck between those two in BR

2ndTimestheCharm

I got this question wrong too so I want to take a stab at explaining how we weaken the argument.

P1: Family life would be a key "environmental factor," in determining whether teens play sports, but it's common for one sibling to join sports and other siblings to refrain.

P2: School programs to entice participation would be another "environmental factor," but they usually fail at their purpose.

Therefore, environmental factors have little effect on whether teens play sports.

---

My first thought was about the myriad other "environmental factors" that exist such as peer pressure, teasing, sororities, frats, etc., but that's not relevant to our task. We just want to weaken this shitty argument. Should be easy since it's shitty, but hard to prephase.

A) Introducing athletic ability as something that does have an effect on whether teens play sports, if anything, strengthens the argument.

B ) Some (how many? one?) are more into sports than their parents. IF it's just one, that this is outweighed by the stated premise that it's common for siblings to be split on the issue. Common trumps some. Some sucks (not saying it's never in the right AC, just saying it's always suspect).

C) We don't care about adults' enthusiasm for sports. At all.

D) If the proportion of teens who play sports varies greatly among societies and decades, then there must be some outside factor within each society and/or within each decade that causes the proportion to differ. Perhaps an "environmental factor." Bingo.

E) Just baits us into rethinking our premise that school programs to get nonsports students excited about sports usually suck.

lsatslayer-1

Conclusion: environment has little impact on teenagers playing sport. Support: look at family and siblings and schools. Look at who is speaking, it is an educator and you can see that he/she is using limited examples.How to weaken it? Bring in alternative large scale observations, how about society as a whole? If it varies society to society, decide by decade, environmental reason should play a GREATER role. (Because genetics would likely not affect this decade by decade..., because that means a whole new breed of atlehtic kids would be born, one decade,an completely non atlethic kids the next decade..? This usually takes more than a decade.
I hate weaken question because YES it requires you to make further inferences especially the ones in the 16-25. Eliminate out of scope answers and think deeply about ambivalent or ambiguous answers.