#11 - A new treatment for muscle pain that looked very

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[bli2016]

Hello, for this question I was between A and E. I've come up with two reasons why E is incorrect, but I'm not sure if they're correct: 1) E is referring to a proposal that is made by the council members, whereas the stimulus is referring to a treatment that is evaluated by the studies, and 2) the conclusion points to the treatment being ineffective (which has a negative connotation), whereas in answer choice E, the development proposal being motivated by self-interest may not necessarily be a bad thing. Is my line of reasoning correct here?

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi, Bli,

Seems like you're on the right track here! But let's make sure that we have a good prephrase for this problem.

Let's start with a description of the argument in the stimulus.

• There have been some studies that have reached a certain conclusion, but these studies have had some issues. Therefore, we the conclusion of these studies is probably erroneous.

What have we tried to accomplish with this description? We're trying to create a tool to use for a prephrase, something to compare against the answer choices. Let's look at the two choices you selected and how closely they match our description.

In answer choice (A) we have a contest that has some problems; therefore, the results of the contest are probably wrong. This is a pretty close match.

In answer choice (E) we have a potential problem with the outcome of a certain process; therefore that process must always have that problem.

Between these two, which is the closer match? (A) is closer to our description.

The key here is to try to reach a "sweet spot": a prephrase description that is accurate enough to find a decisive match but not so overly detailed that we "miss the forest for the trees." Focus on structure and brevity.

[wrjackson1]

What's a good way to clue in on words that change the severity? I chose E over A because I completely missed the "any development proposal" that highlights the problem you posted earlier.

[Francis O'Rourke]

Hi Jackson,

If you find that you have a problem with picking up on this sort of word choice, I would recommend that you slow down while reading the stimulus during your next practice and make an extra effort to know precisely what the speaker is stating before moving on to the answer choices.

There is no complete list of severity or frequency words that I can give you. There is a partial listing of the most common and important ones in the Logical Reasoning Bible, chapter 2, subsection Read the Fine Print. Look over this list, and it should give you a good starting point to work on analyzing arguments. Don't stop with memorizing these words though! Reflect on each of them, and see if you can find possible synonyms or alternate ways of expressing the meanings that they convey.

[Naminyar]

Hello PowerScore,

Would you please describe why answer choice C is wrong?

My prepharase was, “since the components were not flawless, the whole (result) would be defective.

Thanks

[KelseyWoods]

Hi Naminyar!

Let's first take a look at your prephrase. The stimulus tells us that there were problems with the methodologies of the studies, so the results of the studies were probably incorrect. That's not quite the same as saying that the components were not flawless so the whole is defective. I think you were viewing this as a part/whole flaw (or Error of Composition). But that's not really what we have here. The "results" of the studies should not really be interpreted as the "whole" of the study. The flaw with this stimulus is that the author has assumed that just because the methodologies were flawed, that definitely proves the results were incorrect.

Answer choice (A) matches this because the baking judges had flawed methodologies, so the author assumes their winning cake was incorrect.

Answer choice (C) does not match that stimulus because it doesn't have the concept of flawed methodologies equaling flawed results (only answer choice (A) does). Answer choice (C) is certainly flawed--just because some foods have little nutritional value does not mean that people who eat those foods are malnourished--they could be receiving nutrients from all the other foods they eat. It matches the part/whole flaw that you prephrased, but that's not quite the same flaw that we have in the stimulus.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[Naminyar]

Thanks for the explanations Kelsey. It was helpful!

[sndhlpstt]

Hi! I can see why E is not correct but I am still unclear about why A is the correct answer. I don't see how the judges not having uniform criteria necessarily equates to the "critical methodological flaws" in the stimulus.

Are we supposed to infer that not having uniform criteria for a baking contest is inherently flawed?

[Luke Haqq]

Hi sndhlpstt!

You ask,

Are we supposed to infer that not having uniform criteria for a baking contest is inherently flawed?

Yes, that appears to be the methodological flaw in answer choice (A). Not having a uniform standard for a baking contest means the judge might judge one contestant according to certain standards, the next contestant by some other standards, and another by yet another set of standards. It'd be hard to select a winner using that methodology, since they're all being judged by different criteria.

More to the point, (A) is flawed because of what it does with this information. The author of (A) concludes that the cake that won "is probably a bad one" just because the judging was flawed. However, it's possible that the cake that won was good--or at least not bad--even though the judging was flawed.

This mirrors the flaw in the stimulus, which concludes that a given treatment is "probably not effective" just because the studies indicating it was effective were flawed. It is possible that the treatment is effective even though the studies were flawed.