Self-study
Support Tissue biopsies taken on patients who have undergone throat surgery show that those who snored frequently were significantly more likely to have serious abnormalities in their throat muscles than those who snored rarely or not at all. ████ █████ ████ ███████ ███ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ███████
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
We know the second of our two sentences is the conclusion: it starts with "this shows that", which tells us that this sentence is building on the information presented in the previous sentence. The conclusion is that snoring can damage the throat of the snorer. The premise--the evidence presented in the first sentence--is that tissues from people who snore frequently are more likely to show serious abnormalities in the throat muscles than tissues from patients who snore less frequently.
Notable Assumptions
This is a classic correlation-causation assumption. The author assumes that snoring causes the damage seen in the throat muscles of frequent snorers, but it could just as well be the other way around: the abnormalities in the throat muscles cause more frequent snoring. There could even be a third factor causing both. Without further information, we can't tell.
16.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████████ ███ █████████
a
The study relied ██ ███ █████████ ██████████████ ██ █████████ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ██████ ███████████
If this were true, then the data used in the study would seem unreliable, which would undermine the only evidence the author provides. This would weaken the author’s argument, whereas we’re trying to strengthen it.
Directionally wrong
Directionally wrong
Answers that, if they have any effect, do the opposite of what we want (weaken when we're trying to strengthen, or strengthen when we're trying to weaken).
b
The patients' throat ███████ ███ ███ ██████████ ██ █████ █████████████ ██ █████ ██████ ████████
This doesn't strengthen the conclusion. Knowing whether or not the surgeries were meant to address the abnormalities doesn't tell us anything about what caused the abnormalities, which is what we're interested in. We're trying to strengthen the claim that snoring can cause throat damage.
c
All of the ████ ████████ ████ ██ ███████ ███ ███ ██████ ███ ██ ███████ ██████ ██ ███████
Knowing that the study was based on a sample of people who were all roughly in the same state of health might make the study seem more reliable. But we already assume the results of the study are reliable, since they are offered as one of the premises. We're interested in strengthening or weakening the conclusion, which interprets the results of the study as indicating that snoring causes throat damage. In fact, this answer choice potentially weakens the conclusion, since, if all these people were in a similar state of health, and they all came in for throat surgery, it's possible that they all had throat damage related to some shared health factor, like smoking or diet, rather than snoring.
d
People who have █████████ ██████ ███████ ███ ██ ████ ██████ ██ █████ ████ ██████ ███ ████ ███ █████████ ██████ ████████
The argument is about throat abnormalities in general, not just about who undergoes throat surgery. Though the author believes that snoring can damage the throat muscles, the author never says that these abnormalities were what brought people in for surgery in the first place. So throat surgery isn't a key part of our conclusion. It's only relevant because it was the source of the tissues used in the study. We're trying to strengthen the link between snoring and throat abnormalities, which this answer choice doesn't do.
e
The abnormalities in ███ ██████ ███████ ██████████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ███ █████ ████████
This strengthens the conclusion by ruling out the potential counterargument that the causation could be the other way around. If we know for sure that these throat abnormalities don’t cause snoring, by eliminating that possibility, it seems somewhat more likely that the correlation between throat abnormalities and snoring actually comes from snoring causing damage to the throat.
Alternate explanation
Alternate explanation
Weaken: Introduce or support an alternate explanation for a phenomenon.
Strengthen: Helps to eliminate an alternate explanation for a phenomenon.