#18 - Journalist: Recent studies have demonstrated that

[brcibake]

For this question, I picked E. I thought it made more sense than B because the stimulus didn't speak about nonsmokers memory after smoking a cigarette. How can B be the correct answer?
Thank you!

[Adam Tyson]

Because it actually DID talk about the short-term memory of a nonsmoker after smoking a cigarette, brcibake! Check out the second phrase of the first sentence: "whether or not the nonsmoker has also just smoked a cigarette for the purposes of the study". Our author has told us that the smoker who just smoked will typically (meaning usually, or most of the time) display better short-term memory skills than ANY non-smoker. Even if the non-smoker lit up and smoked for the study, the regular smoker will typically beat them at the memory game. From this we might conclude that regular smoking enhances short-term memory, and that the enhancement is at least partially cumulative, improving over time as the person smokes more. That would be a flawed conclusion, though - what if it's just that people with good short-term memory are more likely to smoke? What if some genetic factor improves memory and causes nicotine cravings?

Regardless of how good or bad that argument might be, the author never drew any such conclusion, and we shouldn't either. Instead, we focus on the facts and use them to show something cannot be true. B cannot be true, because we were told that most of the time the regular smokers who just smoked will out-perform ALL non-smokers when it comes to short-term memory. Therefore, it cannot be true that most of the time a non-smoker who just smoked will outperform a smoker who just smoked. That would deny the truth of the statements we were given, violating the fact test, and that cannot happen.

Re-read that first sentence carefully, paying close attention to the phrase after the comma, and you'll see it.

I hope that helps you to smoke the test!

[jwheeler]

I went with B here, but I thought D was a bit confusing. The stimulus states that "the majority of those smokers who exhibit this superiority in short-term memory skills will do so for at least 8 hours after having last smoked". For D, it goes outside the realm that the stimulus covers by saying that this person is one of the minority that doesn't exhibit better memory skills than the non-smoker immediately after smoking.

My thought was that the stimulus doesn't touch on this; it merely refers to those that DO exhibit the superiority and the duration of their benefits. Since this is a Could Be True questions, since it doesn't reference this situation in the stimulus, is it the case that we can't rule this possibility out and therefore it could be true indeed? My first reading made me think that it couldn't be true because these people weren't mentioned in the stimulus (their situation is excluded from those that reap the benefit for 8+ hours later), but now I'm reasoning through it and I don't think that we can definitively rule this possibility out.

Sorry, I tend to think out loud (or via keyboard) when I'm writing these, so hopefully that made sense. If you can confirm my train of thought or direct me in the right way of thinking, I'd appreciate it!

[Robert Carroll]

jwheeler,

I want to be very precise, so I'll "correct" something you had right, but didn't express in the most precise way possible. This is a Cannot Be True question. You get that - you called it Could Be True because, as with any Cannot Be True questions, all the wrong answers are things that Could Be True.

I just want to be precise in case anyone else reads this. Avoiding confusion is best!

Your analysis looks good to me. Answer choice (D) is talking about people who would be atypical, defining "typical" as what the first sentence says. Well, information about those people is completely unknown! Since we don't know anything about them, any statement about them will be possible - so Could Be True. Because this is a Cannot Be True question, anything that Could Be True is wrong.

This is essentially what you said! So you have the correct reasoning for why answer choice (D) is wrong, and, more generally, why any Out of Scope answer would be wrong in a Cannot Be True context.

Robert Carroll

[ashpine17]

I don't see atypical people in D; do you mean the regular smokers who do not show any better short-term memory are the atypical ones??

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Exactly ash. The stimulus states that a smoker "typically" scores better in short-term memory than a non-smoker. Answer choice (D) describes a smoker who scores no better than a nonsmoker. This is not a typical scenario per the stimulus, so we can consider it atypical.

Hope that helps!