Q11 - Cholesterol, which is a known

Hi

I suprised I got this question wrong, because I was pretty sure correct answer would be (B)

first of all, the conclusion is "we can tentatively conclude that high-density lipoproteins(HDLs) help prevent coronary heart disease and stroke."

Basically, the conclusion is cause-effect structure. Namely, HDLs is cause and prevented heart disease and stroke are consequence. so I thought if I answer choice could destroy this causation relationship, that would be correct one(weakener). After all, I choose (B), because I understood (B) says weight is the cause of desease, not HDLs, or at least (B) says overweight, desease and HDLs are correalted, that might weaken the conclusion that HDLs is sole cause to diminished danger of disease.

could anyone tell me why (B) is wrong and (C) is correct?

[bbirdwell]

You are right about the causal model of the argument. However, (B) does not suggest another cause. In fact, it strengthens HDL/disease causal relationship by adding an additional correlation to HDLs and coronary disease. If these people had HIGH levels of HDLs, it would weaken. However, since they have low levels of HDLs and tend to die of coronary disease, this perfectly fits the model suggested in the argument.

(C) does nothing at all for the argument. We have no evidence to suggest that it matters how easily HDLs can be removed vs LDLs.

[cannabise1983]

Thank you for your explanation

but I have one more question.

According to answer choice (B), there are two factors associated with disease, overweight and low levels of HDLs.

In my opinion, (B) seems to imply that overweight could induce death OR low levels of HDLs cause death.

with two probabley possible causes, I thought I can`t be sure that "only" presence or absence of HDLs could lead to prevention of disease or death

Considering (C) is correct answer, I know there was problem in a way I thought about it

could you tell me in which way my thinking went wrong?

[etwcho]

If there are to causes to an effect. Strengthening one of them is regardless a strengthener. Just like you said, we don't know the situation with the other cause (which is overweight), assuming that overweight "could" do something would be overstepping into whole new boundary of assumptions.

[tara_amber1]

Although I was hesitant on choosing an answer other than (C), I was certain that (E) was more irrelevant.

Why is (E) a strengthener/wrong? Is it because of the latter part where it says "...than that of most men?" Because if we changed it to "most women" then it would surely weaken, but why does it strengthen the way it is? Or is it irrelevant?

[gaheexlee]

Why is (E) a strengthener/wrong? Is it because of the latter part where it says "...than that of most men?"

(E) strengthens because it tells us that when level of HDL is the only difference among a group of men, the men with the higher level of HDL have lower risk of coronary heart disease/stroke; so HDL is what accounts for the lowered risk.

This reinforces our stimulus' conclusion that HDL is associated with lower risk of heart disease/stroke. The stimulus had given us a similar example, but just with women vs men, and with women being the group with higher HDL levels, thus lower levels of stroke.

Does that help?

[luluc1234]

Could someone help me to clarify the reasoning structure for both the stimulus and answer choice (B)?

My Breakdown:

Stimulus:
Aerobic exercise & Women--correlates-- higher HDLs
Aerobic exercise & Women--correlates-- lower risk of Heart Disease& Stroke
--------------------
higher HDLs --cause--> lower risk of Heart Disease& Stroke

This reasoning seems to be making the correlation-causation error. However, can we rightfully assume since A correlates with both B and C , that B correlates with C?

Similarly,

1. In the answer choice (B), the strengthening seems to rely on the same logic that Lower level of HDLs (absence of cause) correlates with higher risk of Heart Disease& Stroke (absence of effect) because both correlates with overweight.

2. some suggests the idea of overweight as the strengthener for Aerobic exercise.They reason that correlation between AE and lower risk HD&S is strengthened because Overweight (absence of Aerobic exercise) correlates with higher risk of HD&S (absence of lower risk HD&S). But first can we assume that overweight generally implies absence of aerobic exercise? and second if the emphasis is on overweight, this answer choice would seem like a premise booster.

[jm.kahn]

A is only a strengthener if we assume that cholesterol helps cause heart disease and stroke. The argument never provides this as a premise. We don't know if some amount of cholesterol may be good for health.

Is this expected to be a common sense assumption?

[tuf58975]

Can someone explain a little bit more why E is not correct?

[ohthatpatrick]

Sure ... the author is trying to convince us that "HDLs help prevent coronary heart disease".

(E) says that men with higher levels of HDLs have less risk of coronary heart disease than do men with lower levels of HDLs.

That strengthens!

If I'm trying to convince you that "X helps to bring about Y", then I can increase the plausibility of my claim by saying, "men with more X were more likely to have Y. men with less X were less likely to have Y."

Does that make sense?

[tuf58975]

Yes! That makes more sense to me! Thank you!!

[bswise2]

So I have an issue regarding this question and would love some input.

P1: Cholesterol is a known factor in coronary heart disease and stroke.
P2: Cholesterol needs a carrier, known as lipoprotein to transport it through the bloodstream.
P3: Low-density lipoproteins (LDLs) increase the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke.
P4: Aerobics exercise increases ones high-density lipoproteins (HDL).
P5: HDL levels are higher in women than in men.
P6: Both aerobic exercise and being female are positively correlated with lower risk of coronary heart disease and stroke.
C: Therefore, we can tentatively conclude that HDLs help prevent coronary heart disease and stroke.

Humor me for a moment. If I told you that "Food is a known factor in obesity", what can we logically infer from that? That food plays some sort of role in obesity. We cannot say that the lack of food, surplus of food, or type of food is the problem because we don't know more than the fact that food is a relevant component to this condition. We would need to bring in our outside knowledge of obesity to know that it's typically the surplus of food that is the contributing factor. This reasoning is what is going on in my head during this question, and is why A was so attractive to me.

A- I chose A because the argument never said that the presence of cholesterol is a contributing factor in coronary heart disease and stroke. P1 says that it is a factor, but without allowing outside knowledge into our reasoning, based on just the information we are given, we can only really conclude that cholesterol plays some sort of role. Maybe that role is that high cholesterol contributes to coronary heart disease and stroke, or maybe its that low cholesterol does? Or maybe only certain types do? I figured this question was playing on our outside knowledge of cholesterol, because the argument that we are given never says that high cholesterol is what is bad. It just says cholesterol in general is some sort of factor. P1 would need to say something like "Cholesterol is a known contributor in coronary heart disease and stroke." Or even "High cholesterol is a known factor..." would be better.

(Outside info- HDLs are considered good cholesterol. So why would excreting good cholesterol from the body necessarily be a good thing? I'm sure there is a scientifically sound answer to this but, in terms of the LSAT, what's relevant is the major assumption here.)

B- I didn't have a problem eliminating B

C- I see why this is the correct answer...I just couldn't quite come to terms with A.

D- I didn't have a problem eliminating D.

E- I didn't have a problem eliminating E.

Thanks in advance.