#6 - Scientist: Laboratory animals have access to ample

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[15veries]

Premise:
1) Laboratory animals have access to ample food+they get relatively little exercise
2) often assume those animals are healthy
so 1) 2) kind of

Conclusion:
These factors can skew the results of research

To show the conclusion is true,
it must mean the premise can be wrong and that means
1) not 2)
This contradicts the above conditional statement and if this is true, the conclusion would be true.

Is this correct?

[Adam Tyson]

Hey there 15! I don;t know that I would approach this one conditionally, but we sure can. The author is assuming that animals that have ample food and do not get much exercise are not, in fact, necessarily healthy. If we are going to do a conditional analysis, we would diagram the relationship between the premises and the assumption as:

AF + RLE -> H

Here's how we get there:

Premise 1: The animals have ample food and relatively little exercise
Premise 2: Good research relies on the assumption that the animals are healthy
Conclusion: These animals can skew the research results

What's missing? The animals may not, in fact, be healthy

To prove it, negate it - if those animals in the labs, getting that food and not getting much exercise, are healthy, then they will not screw up the research.

I'm not sure what you mean about a premise can be wrong. The goal in an assumption question is to add the missing premise, not to do harm to the existing premises. When you negate the correct answer choice you might do that harm, so if that's what you meant then yes, you got it. Good job!

[LustingFor!L]

I narrowed this down between B and C, and ultimately chose B. When negated, C supports the author's argument instead of attacking it.

B negated: Laboratory conditions that provide animals with ample food but relatively little exercise can be HEALTHY for the animals.

C negated: It is unusual for animals outside of laboratory settings to have access to ample food and get relatively little exercise.

Please confirm my reasoning.

[AthenaDalton]

I narrowed this down between B and C, and ultimately chose B. When negated, C supports the author's argument instead of attacking it.

B negated: Laboratory conditions that provide animals with ample food but relatively little exercise can be HEALTHY for the animals.

C negated: It is unusual for animals outside of laboratory settings to have access to ample food and get relatively little exercise.

Please confirm my reasoning.

Your reasoning is spot-on! Nicely done!

[LawSchoolDream]

Hey there 15! I don;t know that I would approach this one conditionally, but we sure can. The author is assuming that animals that have ample food and do not get much exercise are not, in fact, necessarily healthy. If we are going to do a conditional analysis, we would diagram the relationship between the premises and the assumption as:

AF + RLE -> H

Here's how we get there:

Premise 1: The animals have ample food and relatively little exercise
Premise 2: Good research relies on the assumption that the animals are healthy
Conclusion: These animals can skew the research results

What's missing? The animals may not, in fact, be healthy

To prove it, negate it - if those animals in the labs, getting that food and not getting much exercise, are healthy, then they will not screw up the research.

I'm not sure what you mean about a premise can be wrong. The goal in an assumption question is to add the missing premise, not to do harm to the existing premises. When you negate the correct answer choice you might do that harm, so if that's what you meant then yes, you got it. Good job!

Hi,

I did Lab animals not healthy --> ample food and little exercise.

Why is this wrong? Because I see yours in reverse.

Also how do I get better at absorbing what I read in stimulus? I realize I have to read over and over again and feel the need to notate detailed. Maybe I'm doing too many details but I feel like that because I have to watch out for details like some all none, particular words like overall project budget vs single project budget etc... I'm way to slow and I get exhausted after a few questions. Currently getting around 15/25 correct and I really want to get to a place where I only get 1 or 2 wrong, if even. Any advice for all that?

[Chandler H]

Hi again, LawSchoolDream!

Just to underscore Adam's point, this question should not necessarily be considered a conditional question, but let's try it out. You are asking why the statement "Lab animals unhealthy ample food and little exercise" is invalid. It's invalid because it implies that all unhealthy lab animals get ample food and little exercise, which doesn't make sense. There are many ways for a lab animal to be unhealthy—for example, if a lab animal gets no food and too much exercise, it would ALSO be unhealthy. Therefore, the correct conditional setup would look like this:

Ample food and little exercise unhealthy lab animal

This is telling us that any lab animal who gets ample food and little exercise will be unhealthy, which makes much more sense!

As for your second question about absorbing what you read in the stimulus, a lot of it comes down to developing a good strategy for reading. Use the highlighting tool if you need to—just make sure that you are paying the closest attention to things like high-level cause and effect. This collection of posts on Logical Reasoning strategy might help you work on specific issues.

Hey there 15! I don;t know that I would approach this one conditionally, but we sure can. The author is assuming that animals that have ample food and do not get much exercise are not, in fact, necessarily healthy. If we are going to do a conditional analysis, we would diagram the relationship between the premises and the assumption as:

AF + RLE -> H

Here's how we get there:

Premise 1: The animals have ample food and relatively little exercise
Premise 2: Good research relies on the assumption that the animals are healthy
Conclusion: These animals can skew the research results

What's missing? The animals may not, in fact, be healthy

To prove it, negate it - if those animals in the labs, getting that food and not getting much exercise, are healthy, then they will not screw up the research.

I'm not sure what you mean about a premise can be wrong. The goal in an assumption question is to add the missing premise, not to do harm to the existing premises. When you negate the correct answer choice you might do that harm, so if that's what you meant then yes, you got it. Good job!

Hi,

I did Lab animals not healthy --> ample food and little exercise.

Why is this wrong? Because I see yours in reverse.

Also how do I get better at absorbing what I read in stimulus? I realize I have to read over and over again and feel the need to notate detailed. Maybe I'm doing too many details but I feel like that because I have to watch out for details like some all none, particular words like overall project budget vs single project budget etc... I'm way to slow and I get exhausted after a few questions. Currently getting around 15/25 correct and I really want to get to a place where I only get 1 or 2 wrong, if even. Any advice for all that?