PT130.S1.Q11 > Analytics

SECTION 1 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26

SECTION 2 · rc

PASSAGE 1

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7

PASSAGE 2

Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13

PASSAGE 3

Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20

PASSAGE 4

Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26 Question 27

SECTION 3 · lr

SECTION 4 · lr

The author concludes that there is no causal connection between damage to chromosome six and adult schizophrenia. He supports this by pointing out that some people with schizophrenia don't have damage to chromosome six, and some people with chromosome six damage don't develop schizophrenia.

The author cites studies that establish a correlation between chromosome six damage and schizophrenia and then concludes that the two aren’t causally connected. But just because there are some exceptions to the correlation doesn’t prove that there is no causal connection between chromosome six damage and schizophrenia at all.

For example, there is a causal relationship between smoking and lung cancer, but some smokers never get lung cancer while some non-smokers do get lung cancer.

The author overlooks the possibility that not all kinds of damage to chromosome six cause schizophrenia. If some types of damage do lead to schizophrenia, then there could still be a causal connection between the two, even if they aren't always linked.

The argument actually assumes that schizophrenia is not caused by damage to chromosome six, simply because the two are not perfectly correlated.

This is the cookie-cutter flaw of using unrepresentative samples. However, we have no reason to believe that the recent studies or the author’s argument are based on unrepresentative samples of people with chromosome 6 damage or schizophrenia.

The author doesn’t mistake a cause for an effect. Instead, he assumes that there is no causal connection between chromosome six damage and schizophrenia at all.

This is the cookie-cutter flaw of assuming that correlation implies causation. But the author concludes that there’s no causal connection at all. Instead of (E), he assumes, without providing warrant, that an imperfect correlation implies a lack of causation.

Question

58% of people who answer get this correct

This is a difficult question.

CURVE

Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right

25% 141

158

75% 176

Question Stem Tags

Flaw or descriptive weakening

Stimulus Tags

Causal reasoning

Popularity Avg. score

58%

165

10%

164

161

159

25%

160

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PrepTest 130 - Section 1 - Question 11

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