#5 - Cigarette companies claim that manufacturing both

[SeoYoung]

Hi SeoYoung!

We don't actually need an exact quantity here to resolve this paradox-- keep in mind, for paradox questions, we're simply trying to find an explanation that could potentially explain the findings. It doesn't have to definitively or provably be true.

So, our stimulus tells us that the levels of nicotine are the same in individuals who smoke a pack of the low versus high nicotine cigarettes are the same. Somehow, the people smoking the low-nicotine cigarettes are still achieving the same level of nicotine in their bloodstream as the people smoking the high-nicotine cigarettes.

Let's look at Answer Choice B: "Smokers of the lowest-nicotine cigarettes available generally smoke more cigarettes per day than smokers of high-nicotine cigarettes."

This is wrong because our stimulus establishes that they are measuring the blood of people who smoke one pack of cigarettes per day-- we can assume that standard packs of cigarettes contains the same number of cigarettes. Therefore, we know that the individuals being measured are smoking the same number of cigarettes as each other. Think about it this way, too: if Person A smokes one high-nicotine cigarette, and Person B smokes 30 low-nicotine cigarettes, it probably wouldn't matter that they're low nicotine, and they would still end up with higher amounts of nicotine in their blood, right? So, having some degree of standardization (i.e. one pack a day) would be a logical precursor to this study.

I hope this helps!

Thanks! Your explanation helps!
So, I have another question about the nature concept or algorithm (may be not a good expression) about solving this kind of question. Also in the Weaken or Strengthen question, don’t we have to prove the answer choice to be properly proven?
I usually think of getting rid of answer choice kinda thinking like “Ummmmm… even if this answer choice may weaken/strengthen the answer choice, what if kind of thing exception???” , similar to this cigarette question; I thought that the different quantity of cigarettes may resolve the paradox.. but there is not the specific correlation mentioned in this answer choice so it may be not the answer…

I want to make this clear. Thanks!

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Seo,

For Resolve the Paradox questions, just like Weaken or Strengthen questions, we accept each answer choice as true. This means that we don't need to "prove" the answer. Instead, when examining each answer, ask yourself, "if this Answer were true, what effect would it have on the argument or paradox above?"

For a Resolve the Paradox question like this one, we want an answer that could help explain the seemingly odd facts in the stimulus. It is critical to correctly identify the exact facts given in the stimulus because often wrong answers address facts/situations/groups that are different from those presented in the stimulus.

Here, the fact is that the group of smokers of high-nicotine cigarettes had the same levels of nicotine in their blood as the group of smokers of low-nicotine cigarettes even though they were smoking the same number of cigarettes per day (1 pack).

The paradox is that you would expect that the smokers of high-nicotine cigarettes would have higher levels of nicotine in their blood than the smokers of low-nicotine cigarettes since there is more nicotine per cigarette in the high-nicotine cigarettes and they are smoking the same number of cigarettes.

Answer B, which states that low-nicotine smokers usually smoke more cigarettes than smokers of high-nicotine cigarettes, doesn't explain the facts in the stimulus, because the number of cigarettes per day has already been accounted for in the study.