#22- Psychologist: It is well known that becoming angry

[imagineer]

This makes a lot of sense. Thanks for all your help!

[GLMDYP]

Hi Powerscore!
For question 22, I found (D) to be the right answer while (E) is merely restating the paragraph. We need to weaken the conclusion, that means that heart disease may not result from psychological factors. (D) literally states that anger and frustration is not the cause of heart disease but the effect of it, and this to me is the right answer. What is wrong?
Thanks!

[Ron Gore]

Hi GLMDYP,

You are absolutely right that in a Weaken question, your Prephrase is that the correct answer will undermine the conclusion, while the incorrect answers either will have no effect on the conclusion or could support it.

As you state in your question, the conclusion is that heart disease can result from psychological factors, a causal relationship. In support of this causal relationship, the premises state that: (1) people who are easily angered are significantly more likely to have permanently high blood pressure than are people who have more tranquil personalities; and (2) those with permanently high blood pressure are especially likely to have heart disease.

Your Prephrase is that the argument is flawed because it presents evidence of a series of correlations, but the conclusion infers causation from them.

Answer choice (E) is not merely a restatement of the stimulus. A closer reading of the wording of that choice will show you that it talks about physiological factors, and not psychological factors. So, if the physiological factors that cause permanently high blood pressure also generally make people quick to anger, then this answer choice provides an alternate cause that leads to both high blood pressure and quickness to anger.

Answer choice (D) also says something different than you indicated in your question. Answer choice (D) states that people who discover that they have heart disease tend to become more easily frustrated, not angered, by small difficulties.

First, this answer choice does not imply a chronological relationship between finding they have heart disease and tending to be more easily frustrated. So, it may be the case that they were always more likely to be more easily frustrated, not just after they learned they had heart disease. Second, "frustrated" and "angered" are very different terms, and since they are not merely synonymous, you should avoid switching them in and out the causal relationship from the stimulus.

Please let me know if I can help further. From this question, it appears your process is sound, but you might be rushing a bit through the answer choices. Properly identifying the logical gap in the stimulus does no good if you rush through the answer choices. Slowing down a bit to focus better on the actual language being used, rather than getting the gist of the answer choice, should help improve your accuracy.

Thanks,

Ron

[GLMDYP]

Thank you very much Ron! Your answer is very helpful!

[Ron Gore]

You're welcome!

[EmilyLSAT22]

Hi, I originally selected answer choice C while taking the test, but when I went back through the test for review, I realized that the correct answer is E. Is C wrong because it actually strengthens the psychologist's argument by showing when the cause (easily-angered personality) does not occur the effect (heart disease) does not occur?

Thank you!

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi Emily,

You got it! Good job working through this one and checking your own work.

[harvoolio]

So would (D) have been correct had it read "People with heart disease tend to be angrier people."?

(1) Eliminating the temporal flaw. (occurring after the effect of getting heart disease).
(2) Eliminating the comparison flaw (frustration versus anger).

Thanks.

I misread (E) as psychological repeating the stimulus and hence eliminated (E) as opposite and strengthening the argument (i.e. psychological factors sill cause heart disease).

[Adam Tyson]

I think that your proposed change to answer D would turn it into a good Strengthen answer, harvoolio, because it would improve the correlation between heart disease and at least one psychological factor. If, however, it had said "people who discover they have heart disease tend to then become angrier people", that might weaken the claim by suggesting a reversed cause and effect - instead of anger causing heart disease, heart disease, or the knowledge of having it, causes anger.

Answer E is another way to attack a causal argument - there is an alternate cause for both things - and that's why it is the best answer here.

[desiboy96]

Hey powerscore, this is more of a general question that relates to a major problem I have when it comes to LR that appeared in this question and was hoping you guys could give me some advice. So with this question, I was down between D and E. Both looked attractive since they hinted at the idea of, in the case of E, an alternative cause, and in D's case, that perhaps the author mixed up the cause and effect.

I ultimately chose D because I thought it was safe to assume that getting angry and getting frustrated were the same thing. I have made mistakes like this before where I have not paid close attention to the language (in another question for example I conflated the terms "airplanes" and "flights")

Do you guys have any tips on how to avoid conflating terms?

Thank you for reading this