#7 - The Kuna, a people native to several Panamanian islands

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[jab15]

Hello,

I got this question right but it was troubling to me to say the least. When I read the stimulus I knew I was dealing with a MBT/Most Strongly Supported question. All Kuna are people who generally have a low incidence of high blood pressure but those who move to the mainland don't. They then go on to say that those on the island drink a cocoa that is high in flavonoids (LSAT loves those flavonoids) but those on the mainland do not. I thought it was troubling to pick the answer that stated there was a causal connection between drinking the cocoa and the prevention of high blood pressure. The only other answer that remotely seemed like a contender to me was C but that is way more of a jump that is not supported by the stimulus. I guess I am wary of picking a causation answer choice in a MBT/MSS question. Is this answer correct because they almost unwittingly show that a cause happens on the islands with the result of low blood pressure and then on the mainland there is no cause (no cocoa drink) so no effect (low blood pressure)?

I thank you in advance for answering this question!

[Alexandra Ruby]

Hi Jab15:

Just because it is a MBT question does not mean that causation is ruled out as a potential answer choice. In fact, in many MBT questions (as in this one) you will be provided with factual statements or premises from which you will need to find the conclusion.

Here, you have a factual stimulus with no argumentation present so you have to understand the way the facts relate to one another and what has to be true as a result of all of the facts in the stimulus being true. The only facts given are the Kuna on the islands have low blood pressure while those on the mainland do not. The other fact given is that the island Kuna drink cocoa rich in flavonoids.

Answer choice (E) is the only conclusion that can be reached based on these facts. None of the other answer choices are supported by the stimulus. Although all of the remaining choices could be true, they do not have to necessarily follow the facts in the stimulus.

[Adam Tyson]

And notice here that the stem is a Most Strongly Supported, not a true Must Be True question. MSS is sort of the weak cousin to MBT - same family, same basic approach, but we can accept answers that are less certain to be true. That means that the correct answer doesn't HAVE to be true, but only needs to be the answer that appears to have the most support. We cannot prove the causal relationship here with the facts of the stimulus, but it is the one answer that appears to have the most support from the stimulus because it doesn't bring in any outside information and is generally consistent with the claims in the stimulus.

[jk615]

I was debating between (D) and (E) and I eventually went with (D).

Is D incorrect because it compares people on the Panamanian mainland to other people who live on the mainland?

[Eric Ockert]

That's right jk.

We have no idea what their incidence of high blood pressure is relative to non-Kuna. All we know is that Kuna on the islands have a low incidence of high blood pressure, and Kuna on the mainland don't. That would allow us to conclude that Kuna on the mainland have higher blood pressure than Kuna on the islands, but not higher than other mainlanders.

Hope that helps!

[haganskl]

Hello. I have a question about answer choice D.
Would D be correct if it read:
Kuna who live on the Panamanian mainland generally have higher blood pressure than Kuna people that live on the island.

This AC almost tripped me up because I thought the last word was island, even though it clearly reads mainland. I read too fast.

Anyway, this still doesn’t necessarily have to be true though, right, because we don’t have the data about the number of people??

TIA!

[Adam Tyson]

With that change, answer D would have been a much better answer, haganskl, and it would have had good support. If that was what D actually said, and if E was not there as an answer choice, I think you could reasonably select it. Read carefully!

[haganskl]

Thanks, Adam!