#4 - The mind and the immune system have been shown to be

[andriana.caban]

Hi,

Due to this thread, I understand why (E) is an incorrect answer choice. However, I am confused as to what the stimulus is saying. I can't fully connect the ideas together. Below is a summarization of what I thought the stimulus said before looking at this thread:

"Scientists say doing good deeds benefits immune system (can we assume that good deeds also benefit the mind as well, since the mind and the immune system are linked). Bone marrow and the spleen produces white blood cells that fight infection and white blood cells are stimulated by good chemicals created as a result of magnanimous behavior."

Based on my summarization of the stimulus, I'm having difficulties creating a possible conclusion, or, creating a prephrase. Can you describe what is wrong with my summarization? And, how should I work on improving my ability to link these facts together? Thanks!

[Jay Donnell]

Hi Andriana!

Thanks for the great question, I'm going to jump in and hopefully help clear things up!

In regards to your bolded point, it's not that good deeds benefit the mind as well as the immune system, it's that good deeds benefit the immune system through the mind. The chain of events essentially goes:

Good deeds (magnanimous behavior) ----> brain produces beneficial chemicals ----> stimulates activity of white blood cells (via that neural pathway from the brain to the immune system) --> benefits the immune system as they help fight infections.

(Those arrows aren't meant to imply conditional statements, simply the pathway through the systems that connect good deeds to the immune system)

This is a Most Strongly Supported question, which is extremely similar to a MBT but the 'most' in the stem allows for a slight amount of wiggle room in the truth of the answer. Don't think of it like a could be true, but more of an overwhelmingly likely to be true. This essentially connects to the burden of proof actually utilized by the law, which involves the concept of 'true beyond all reasonable doubt.'

This means that our stimulus is almost exclusively going to contain simply a fact set and not an argument, and our answer takes the form of a conclusion derived from the evidence in the stimulus. Our job is to summarize the specifics and the strength offered in the stimulus, so that we can pre-phrase an answer that falls under the subject and evidence that we are given. For that reason, we should definitely be drawn to answers with weak logical force, and be very wary of answers with strong logical force.

Some attractive words to look for: may, can, could, might, some, possible, etc.
Some unattractive words: must, need, always, never, all, every, radical, dramatically, etc.

The reason we should be on the look out for weaker answers in both MBT and MSS questions is that the lower the strength of those statements, the easier it would be to support them. If you think of evidence as a budget, we can't pick an answer that we can't afford; we can only select an answer that is equal or lesser in logical force than the evidence in the stimulus we have to draw from.

This particular question makes two minor shifts that catch a lot of students off guard, and one or both may have hurt you here:

The word magnanimous is essentially defined as 'generous toward others,' which makes it an acceptable replacement for the concept of 'doing good deeds.'

The correct response of D involves what is essentially a new term or concept, but one similar enough to the evidence language in the stimulus. Since a result of doing good deeds is the body being better able to fight infections (which no one wants, I hope!), it's not an inappropriate stretch to think that doing good deeds will eventually result in something which is 'beneficial to one's interests.'

This response ended up being far longer than I intended, but I hope that it helps clear up the issues with this particular stimulus summary as well as points you in the right direction for more questions of this type!

Thanks for the insightful question, keep 'em coming!

[mhlsat]

hi there!
I was hesitant on picking E at first because "simulating" the activity of white blood cells doesn't constitute increasing the number of them in the body. However, the phrase "produce the white blood cells" in the stimulus made me think that that might mean "increasing the number of white blood cells", because producing = making more = increasing the number of the subject at hand.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

For answer choice (E), the key word is "radically." We have nothing in the stimulus to support that the white blood cells would increase in an extreme way. The strength of the answer choice is something that we cannot prove by the stimulus. We can show that it would increase, but the extent of the increase would be unknown.

Watch out for extreme language in the answer choices in Must Be True questions. They are much harder to support, and they require strong language in the stimulus to back them up. Think of strong language in an answer choice not as a reason to eliminate an answer automatically, but as a reason to be suspicious. Make sure your stimulus provides sufficient support before picking an answer choice like answer choice (E) here.

[ericsilvagomez]

Hi,

I chose answer choice E, but I understood why I got it wrong. However, can you elaborate on the other choices that contained mistaken negation and mistaken reversal? I thought that those concepts were only in problems where you have to diagram.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Eric,

You're correct that Mistaken Reversals and Mistaken Negations are specific flaws found in conditional reasoning (which, as you mentioned, generally should be diagrammed). This stimulus (and Answers B and C) contain causal reasoning rather than conditional reasoning, so technically these terms wouldn't be exactly correct in this situation.

In the original explanation for this question, Answer B was described as "basically" a Mistaken Negation and Answer C was described as "basically" a Mistaken Reversal.

I expect that this was done to try to convey what is wrong with these answers using concepts that (hopefully) are already familiar to students.

The stimulus states that magnanimous behavior causes the stimulation of white blood cells, which improve the immune system.

Answer B shows the removal of the stated cause having the opposite effect. This is somewhat similar (but not identical) to the concept of a Mistaken Negation in conditional reasoning, in which the sufficient condition not occurring is assumed to mean that the necessary condition must not occur.

Answer C is basically reversing the stated cause and effect from the stimulus by implying that the chemicals in the brain regulate the magnanimous behavior rather than the magnanimous behavior producing the chemicals in the brain as stated in the stimulus. Again, this is somewhat similar (but not identical) to the concept of a Mistaken Reversal in conditional reasoning, in which the necessary condition occurring is assumed to mean that the sufficient condition must also occur.

In short, this question does not contain conditional reasoning and if bringing in conditional concepts makes it more confusing, then feel free to ignore those. Some students may find them helpful as an analagous framework to think about those answers.

Hope that helps!

[ericsilvagomez]

Hi,

Thanks for this explanation as well!