PT86.S1.Q19 - Researcher: In an experiment, 500 families were given...

sucralosedaddysucralosedaddy Alum Member
edited August 2023 in Logical Reasoning 310 karma

Can someone go through this question and explain their thought process?

I think I was thrown off by this for two reasons. First, I was uncomfortable drawing the conclusion that Self Help books -> less visits and secondly, in the answer choices what "state of affairs" was referring to exactly?

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Comments

  • bananabobananabo Core Member
    1211 karma

    When I did this I was also iffy about drawing a causal relationship between books and less visits, but it didn’t prevent me from arriving at the correct answer because I interpreted the stimulus as:

    • There’s an experiment.
    • The result of the experiment is that books are linked with less visits.
    • Also, improved health is linked with less visits.
    • Therefore, books cause improved health.

    Flaw: Just because books and improved health are both linked with less visits, it doesn’t mean that they are casually related.

    A similar argument would be:

    • Exercise is linked with increased heart rate.
    • Anxiety is also linked with increased heart rate.
    • Therefore, exercise causes anxiety.

    With that interpretation, I cancelled out answer choices A, B, and E because they are trying to say that the experiment is flawed but that’s not where the argument is flawed.

    Answer C is saying that the books or improved health can cause other things, which is also not where the argument is flawed.

    So we are left with answer choice D, which says exactly what we said the flaw was.

    And to answer your second question, I understood “state of affairs” to refer to either the books or the improved health.

  • sucralosedaddysucralosedaddy Alum Member
    310 karma

    Yeah I believe I just completely miss interpreted the "two different state of affairs", because I landed on the flaw, eliminated the A,B,E, and held onto C and D

    Then interpreted D's "two different state of affairs" as referring to the control group and the experimental group so I eliminated it based of that.

    I wasn't happy with C, but just stuck to it and moved on.

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