#24 - In a recent study of arthritis, researchers tried but

[Clay Cooper]

Hi Rita,

Thanks for your question.

"Researchers found no correlation..." does not mean there is no correlation; no one here is claiming to have proved anything. All that the correct answer choice asserts is that these findings suggest that the correlation might in fact not exist. The research certainly does seem to suggest that; there is no need for us to assume that the research proves it (that would be, as you point out, a bad assumption).

Hope that helps!

[AAron24!]

`Hi Powerscore,
Out of curioisty, if there was an answer choice that something along the lines of, "The study shows that people that everyone has their own experiences with arthirits." Wouldnt this also be an accurate completion of the argument as it shows that everyone that has arthriits also has different responses to various weathers? This was my prephrase to the question.

[Robert Carroll]

Aaron,

There are two aspects to your prephrase that I think don't quite hit the mark. First, note that the correct answer says the study "suggests" something. I think that's actually a good thing for an answer to say - we have one study, and shouldn't be too quick to make sweeping conclusions from it. So saying the study "suggests" rather than "proves" or "shows" is important.

Further, the information about the study we have is focused on correlations (or lack thereof!) between arthritic pain and weather conditions. A prephrase that generalizes beyond that situation to "experiences" more generally is not limited to pain and weather like it should be.

Robert Carroll

[ange.li6778]

Hi Powerscore, I'd really like some additional clarification on this question. Is B wrong because the stimulus says the sufferers think weather factors caused increased pain while B is just about causes of pain? So the sufferers aren't saying they believe weather factors caused their pain but rather made it worse? Otherwise, it seems to me that B is vague enough to also mean that the sufferers are imagining their increased pain when there's weather factors. I can usually reason out why the right answer is right but this time I'm really stumped. Thanks in advance!

[Henry Z]

I see the two main reasons (B) is wrong are 1) without support, it says beliefs cause pain, and 2) "indicate" is too strong.

But 1) does "affect" suggest a causal relationship? I understand it just means "change" (and not even always change), so the beliefs don't cause the pain, but only changes one's "assessment" of the pain. For instance, the belief about the cause of the pain may make the arthritis sufferer more conscious of a dull pain when "the relevant feature of the weather" occurs. Sufferers giving varying accounts may be because of their varying extents of the beliefs, and sometimes the beliefs don't affect at all (note the stimulus says "MAY affect"). The real cause may be neither weather nor the belief.

2) "indicate" in (B) may be stronger than "suggest" in (C), but doesn't the aforementioned "MAY", which means may or may not, soften the language enough?

[Adam Tyson]

"Affect" is a causal idea, Henry. The problem with answer B is that belief isn't tied to the INTENSITY of the pain, but to the CAUSE of the pain. It's not about how much pain they are in, but what is causing that pain in the first place.

"May" does soften that language, as you say, but the answer is still about the wrong thing being indicated. The study tells us something about the cause of the pain, not about the intensity of that pain.

[ashpine17]

wait, so was the initial post saying that B was wrong because it was factually NOT supported or it was wrong because the emphasis was wrong

[ashpine17]

when reading the stimulus, am i supposed to side more with the researchers in terms of who is correct about the causes of the pain?

[Adam Tyson]

You aren't really supposed to take a side, ashpine, but you are supposed to complete the argument, so you should put yourself in the position of the author of the argument. What would they say about what the study shows? Not the researchers, and not the arthritis sufferers, but the author of the argument. Complete their argument for them. Supply their conclusion, based on what they said about the results of the study.

And yes, there is no factual basis in the argument to support answer B, since the study gave us no information about the degree to which they accurately assessed the intensity of their pain. The may have been 100% accurate about the pain intensity, but still completely imagined that the weather had something to do with it.

[sxzhao]

The stimulus completely made no sense to me... feels like scattered facts with too many variables unaddressed. As a result, I found no choice to be correct to fill the blank, and unsurprisingly had the wrong guess. Please help point out where I understood the experiment wrong. Here's my recap:

Author asserts there's no correaltion between weather features and pain intensity by providing the following evidence:
Step 1: grouped those who believe there's indeed a correlation (for simplicity, let's say there are 3 people)
Step 2: ask each to identify the time between the occurance of the feature they believe to be affective and the feeling of increased pain, so let's say here's what they report:
Person 1: 10 min between when they believe it starts raining and increased pain
Person 2: 5 min between when they believe humidity is above 50% and increased pain
Person 3: 15 min between when they believe there's lightening and increased pain
And since they believe in different features of weather, the ocurances of rain, humidity, and lightening are not necessarily at the same time

We're then asked to draw a conclusion from the experiment above. So here's my evaluation of each choice:
a. wrong because it asserts the effects of "weather", but we actually don't know whether the weather features are actual or simply percepted/believed to be so
b. wrong because we have no information about their "assesssment of pain intensity"
c. wrong because, like a, we are unsure whether there is actually any weather condition taking place. It's too arbitarary to call everything "imagined". It's totally possible that people's perception of a weather condition deffers from the actual time of the weather condition, but the latter still plays a role
d. wrong because no information provided
e. wrong because no information provided about any other possible methods in the world