#20 - There is strong evidence that the cause of migraines

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Resolve the Paradox. The correct answer choice is (C)

This stimulus starts by introducing the denial of a cause and effect relationship – namely that psychological factors do not cause migraines. Despite the fact that evidence shows no such relationship, studies have found that people who are professionally treated for migraines rate higher on the standard psychological scale for anxiety than those who are not.

Answer choice (A): This answer choice may be more appropriate if the cause and effect relationship had something to do with migraines being hereditary. Since it did not, this answer choice does nothing to assist us in resolving the stimulus paradox.

Answer choice (B): This would seem to imply that stress, a psychological factor, was causing the migraines. However, we have already been told that evidence shows that is not true. Therefore, this answer choice only serves to further cloud the issue.

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. The key here is that the studies used involved individuals who sought professional treatment. This answer choice is explaining that the types of people who seek professional treatment when they have a migraine are those who have higher levels of anxiety. The anxiety did not cause the migraines; instead, it caused the individuals to seek treatment once they started having migraines. If the studies included those individuals who had migraines, but did not seek professional treatment, the results would likely be different.

Answer choice (D): The fact that such studies have been highly publicized does nothing to negate the strong evidence that those studies are false. It also does nothing to explain the higher levels of anxiety among those who seek professional treatment for migraines.

Answer choice (E): How long people stay once they seek professional treatment has nothing to do with the results of psychological tests performed upon those in professional treatment. Everything in this answer choice is occurring after the migraines have been caused by one effect or another, and the individuals suffering the migraines have made the choice to enter into professional treatment. Therefore, this answer choice can have no effect on the apparent discrepancy.

[ctrinley]

Hello,

The correct answer according to the key is C. This was my initial choice. However the category "people who are not being professionally treated for migraines" as stated in the informational paragraph is different from the category in answer C: "people who seed professional treatment" (without specifying seeking treatment for migraines). The first category could include all those seeking professional treatment for other reasons, making the discrepancy not resolved by answer C.

Is this irrelevant? How is my thinking wrong?

Thanks for your help.

[Jon Denning]

Thanks for the question. This is a Resolve the Paradox question, so let's start by identifying exactly what the paradox is: evidence suggests migraines are caused by something physical rather than psychological, yet people being professionally treated for migraines have greater anxiety (psychological issue) than people not professionally treated. So we need an answer that explains this difference (greater anxiety among those getting professional treatment than those who are not).

Answer choice C does that by saying that people with high anxiety are more likely to seek professional treatment than people with lower anxiety, hence you would get a greater percentage of people with anxiety in the group seeking professional treatment for migraines. I think where you're getting hung up is in that categorization of seeking pro treatment (answer) vs seeking it specifically for migraines (stimulus). But keep in mind that answer choice C says "more likely to seek professional treatment" as a general term/description, meaning more likely to seek ANY/ALL TYPES of professional treatment. That certainly includes seeking professional treatment for migraines, so it does address the facts of the stimulus. In other words, the correct answer gives a broader category (all pro treatment) than the stimulus (migraine pro treatment), but by being broader it still accounts for the specific scenario the stimulus describes.

If it was the other way around--the stimulus was broad and the answer only addressed a portion of it--we'd have a problem, because the answer wouldn't necessarily resolve for the entire stimulus group. But when the answer is broader than the stimulus group we're okay: the answer addresses that group, and potentially other groups as well.

Make sense?

[ctrinley]

Thank you so much for your reply.

I think I understand what you are saying. Part of my confusion arises from the meaning of the stimulus. Maybe you can help me with this.

The opposition "people receiving pro treatment for migraines" versus "people not seeking pro treatment for migraines" contributed to my confusion, because the latter category includes everyone but those receiving pro treatment for migraines. This makes half of the stimulus very broad, while the first half of the stimulus is extremely narrow.

Thus the answer could be seen as less broad than the second half of the stimulus, since the answer refers to those seeking pro treatment for anything, while the second half of the stimulus refers to all those not seeking pro treatment for migraines. The people with higher anxiety rating in the answer could be seeking pro treatment for anything (as you mentioned) however that group could be included in the broad half of the stimulus "people not seeking pro treatment for migraines." In other words, the answer could be seen as less broad than half of the stimulus. My thinking is confusing me here a bit.

Thanks for your patience and help.

One last question, probably familiar to you, any suggestions for increasing speed other than practice?

[Jon Denning]

I'm not sure I entirely understand your question about the stimulus here, but I'll try to re-explain things in hopes that it clears up any remaining confusion. The reason the answer choice resolves for the groups in the stimulus is that the answer addresses all those who seek pro treatment (for anything), so it certainly covers those seeking pro treatment specifically for migraines. That is, if we can say that people with anxiety are more likely to seek treatment for whatever issues they have compared to those with less/no anxiety, then it makes sense that people in treatment for migraines would tend to have higher anxiety. They're part of the group we know is willing to get professional treatment, the group that tends to have higher anxiety.

Don't concern yourself with the relative "broadness" of the groups in the stimulus (relative to one another, that is), but instead ask yourself if the answer choice sufficiently addresses those groups. It does: people seeking pro treatment in the answer includes those who seek it for migraines in the stimulus, thus serving to better explain the paradox of the two stimulus groups. Put more generically, we know the people in the stimulus either have a specific characteristic (seek treatment for migraines) or they don't, and the answer tells us something about that migraine treatment group by giving a characteristic of the group they're a part of (any treatment = higher anxiety).

Anything beyond that is probably overthinking it, and certainly unnecessary.

As for your last question, "speed" is simply a product of understanding--recognizing what you're seeing and knowing instinctively/immediately how to react to it--and understanding is born out of practicing properly. Which is two things, really. 1. Practice, which requires time and effort and exposure to a lot of test material so that you can better identify what the test makers are doing and the subtleties and nuances used in the construction of various arguments and question types. And 2. Practicing Properly, which means diligently and consistently applying appropriate strategies to effectively break down and solve questions. For example, you need to work on a lot of Weaken questions to become completely adept at them (practice), but you also need to understand how they work, how to identify them, the elements of argumentation they tend to contain (premise vs conclusion, assumptions, potential flaws, causality), and how to accurately prephrase for them. That's the "proper" part of "proper practice."

[ctrinley]

Thank you, Jon.

I thought I was probably overthinking it. The broadness concept just fueled more overthinking. Thanks for clarifying.

Thanks also for your suggestions about "proper" practice. I need to review some of the content that I studied last year in the powerscore bibles