#18 - A person is more likely to become disabled as that

[Adam Tyson]

Not all the answers bring up problems with the argument, Adam. For example, answer A does nothing to poke holes in the explanation because it is about newly incurred disabilities. If anything, that strengthens the argument because it suggests that younger people will be less likely to have disabilities that might qualify them for disability payments, but the stats suggest that the opposite is true. The conclusion would help to explain that odd discrepancy.

I would not use the inclusion of "jobs" in the answer guide you here, because the correct answer could have nothing to do with jobs. For example, what if we had an answer that said something like "those with disabilities severe enough to qualify for payments have shorter lifespans than those who do not qualify"? That might be an alternate cause for the declining percentage of payments among older people with no reference whatsoever to jobs! Maybe it's just that the folks over 65 who qualified are dying off at a higher rate than those who don't qualify?

Matching key concepts like that works well on most Assumption and Justify the Conclusion questions, and many Strengthen questions, but it's not a reliable approach for most Weaken questions, especially ones that involve causal reasoning where the correct answer could invoke a previously unmentioned alternate cause.

[miriamson07]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but, don't all the answers for this question result in "at best incomplete?"

Hi,

I'd like to second Adam's point here that all the answers for this question result in "at best incomplete." I'm not familiar with this question stem, but if I assume that the correct answer should be one that weakens the argument, I don't agree that answer choice E does the trick... rather, what answer choice E does is provide a partial explanation only. The other answer choices provide no explanation. That is why I am confused about choosing the answer that gives a partial explanation over the ones that give no explanation. The question stem, to be exact, asks for the answer that shows the argument is "at best incomplete." Why couldn't the correct answer choice be one that gives no explanation, thus leaving the argument as simply incomplete?

[Amber Thomas]

Hi Miriamson!

Our explanation in the stimulus states that the reason for the discrepancy is because the proportion of jobs offering disability benefits has increased. This would imply that older adults (i.e. 65+ years old) who are generally retired and do not hold jobs would not have access to this disability insurance. Therefore, they would receive fewer disability benefit payments than do other age brackets. Similarly, those of a "working age" (i.e. younger) would be more likely to have this insurance and thus receive these payments, even though they are less likely to become disabled.

Answer Choice E casts doubt on this, because it states that even if individuals 65+ years old did hold jobs, they still would not have access to this disability insurance. The explanation in the stimulus does not account for this, thereby making it incomplete.

I hope this helps!