Q14 - The "suicide wave" that followed

[lhermary]

I used POE and got this one right but I still don't feel that I understand how D challenges the conclusion.

Thanks

[demetri.blaisdell]

Thanks for your question, lhermary. First step is the argument core.

October and November had low suicide totals + Summer months when the stock market was up had higher totals ----> The "suicide wave" story is a legend

No real obvious gap so let's look at the answer choices:

(A) isn't much of a weaken. The stock market crash might be included in psychological, interpersonal, and societal factors. If it is, this strengthens.

(B) strengthens. It gives us another reason why the suicide figures are a bit higher in October and November (because they always are). Maybe people really don't like Halloween and Thanksgiving.

(C) is our weaken. If October and November of 1929 had significantly more suicides than the several years before and after, it seems that the "suicide wave" was more than a legend.

(D) doesn't clearly strengthen or weaken. We don't know if the suicide figures are different from the years surrounding. We don't know anything about December and we don't know anything about the beginning of the year.

(E) also strengthens. It tells us that we shouldn't expect October and November to be the same as other months. But we have no idea if it should be higher or lower. All we know is they aren't "normal" months.

I hope this explanation helps. Let me know if you have any more questions.

Demetri

[WaltGrace1983]

Was anyone else thrown off by that word "comparatively" when the stimulus said that the "number of suicides in Oct. and in Nov. was comparatively low." I couldn't tell if that meant comparatively low when comparing it to other months in that year or Oct. and Nov. of other years. That's why I was a bit hesitant to select (C) because it seemed like a premise de-booster if it was talking about comparative to other Octs. and Novs. Either way, the other answer choices weren't very good so I just assumed that I was wrong about what comparatively meant in this context and moved on.

[Mab6q]

Was anyone else thrown off by that word "comparatively" when the stimulus said that the "number of suicides in Oct. and in Nov. was comparatively low." I couldn't tell if that meant comparatively low when comparing it to other months in that year or Oct. and Nov. of other years. That's why I was a bit hesitant to select (C) because it seemed like a premise de-booster if it was talking about comparative to other Octs. and Novs. Either way, the other answer choices weren't very good so I just assumed that I was wrong about what comparatively meant in this context and moved on.

It was certainly used to compare the rates in October and November to those in the other months, that's the reasoning in the argument. The author uses a relative argument - because it was lower in Oct/Nov than it was in say April/May, there's no way we can say that there was an unusual amount of suicides in Oct. Well, what if there were 0 suicides in Oct the previous 10 years, then the relativity argument would not hold much weight. That is what C does.

[a8l367]

(E) also strengthens.

Demetri

Does it?

Passage:
Rates in O&N 1929 are lower on comparison with other monthes

c) rates in O&N 1929 was higher than in O&N in other years
e) rates in O&N are seasonable

so the only diff is that in C we are told that rates are seasonable & lower, while in E we are told only that they are seasonable.
Is it correct?