Q17 - Researchers have found that people

[sge4]

I see why (C) is the best answer, but is the problem with (D) that it's irrelevant?

[noah]

Some wise researchers cut back their coffee drinking to 2 cups per day when they found out that 5 or more cups per day can really mess with your health.

We need to find a reason that this decrease might not help.

In general, just because you reduce one factor doesn't mean there aren't other factors. Or, as (C) notes, perhaps the factor that seems most relevant is simply a result of some other factor - the real cause! If coffee drinking increases with stress, which makes us sick (note how I'm paraphrasing), then even if you don't drink the coffee, if you're still stressed out you could still be sick.

(A) is about folks drinking 3 or more - our researchers went to 2.

(B) is out of scope - who cares what most people are doing?

(D) is about smokers. The argument tells us that the results corrected for smoking. Don't doubt your premises! Anyway, it doesn't matter how much coffee smokers tend to drink.

(E) is simply explaining how coffee can make you sick. We already know that. Premise booster! The issue is whether 2 cups constitutes heavy coffee consumption. (I hope not.)

[xareign]

I think perhaps there is another way to look at this problem which reveals the test makers' strategies of trapping us. Correct me anywhere where I am wrong please.

Argument form:

Drinking 5 or more cups of coffee per day --> 2.5 times higher HD risk than average
------------
Researchers are now drinking 2 cups per day

Important Feature of Argument:

This argument is making a causal claim, and we all know that there are great ways to undermine causal claims. So before you even get to the answer choices, it would be best to notice this at first, thus making your answer choice elimination phase more advanced.

Gap:

Very broadly, assumes no alternate cause. But more specifically, does not eliminate other ways HD could be caused other than coffee drinking.

Attacking Answer Choices:

(A) No. Talks about only 3 cups, not 5. If anything, this may even HELP the arg. since it shows that it is already established that coffee drinking at amounts LOWER than 5 cups causes HD. Oh no! This might lead us to think that anymore than 3 cups makes things even worse!

(B) Nope. societal issues irrelevant. The test makers are seeing if you are bringing in "worldly info" into the LSAT to answer this question. Notice that if we put on our LSAT blinders and SOLELY focus on the premise and conclusion, there is no way that facts about soda popularity and health worries would harm or help the argument. Why? Because the argument is about THE RESEARCHERS, not other people. No mention of causation either.

(C) Yes! Notice that this shows that there could be an alterante cause, actually a "major causal factor": STRESS! I read it as something like this:

inc./dec. coffee --> inc./dec. stress --> inc./dec. HD

(D) No. This one may be appealing at first because it has a lot of the same terms. But this answer seems to me to be a trap. Why? Because the test makers are playing on the possible assumption you will make that the researchers smoke and smokers drink a ton of coffee (which may be true in the real world). Notice that if it WERE true that the researchers were smokers and if it WERE true that smokers drink at least 5 cups daily, then this would have much more weight. But, of course, we can't make that assumption.

(E) No. This may even help the argument because it strengthens the link between coffee drinking and HD.

How does this look??

[noah]

Looks good! I think we actually see this question by and large the same way. You gave some great detail that I did not, and you formalized some of my references to causation. I need to wear a bow tie once in a while. Nice work.

I think perhaps there is another way to look at this problem which reveals the test makers' strategies of trapping us. Correct me anywhere where I am wrong please.

Argument form:

Drinking 5 or more cups of coffee per day --> 2.5 times higher HD risk than average
------------
Researchers are now drinking 2 cups per day

Important Feature of Argument:

This argument is making a causal claim, and we all know that there are great ways to undermine causal claims. So before you even get to the answer choices, it would be best to notice this at first, thus making your answer choice elimination phase more advanced.

Assumption:

Very broadly, an alternate cause. But more specifically, did not eliminate other ways HD could be caused other than coffee drinking.

Attacking Answer Choices:

(A) No. Talks about only 3 cups, not 5. If anything, this may even HELP the arg. since it shows that it is already established that coffee drinking at amounts LOWER than 5 cups causes HD. Oh no! This might lead us to think that anymore than 3 cups makes things even worse!

(B) Nope. societal issues irrelevant. The test makers are seeing if you are bringing in "worldly info" into the LSAT to answer this question. Notice that if we put on our LSAT blinders and SOLELY focus on the premise and conclusion, there is no way that facts about soda popularity and health worries would harm or help the argument. Why? Because the argument is about THE RESEARCHERS, not other people. No mention of causation either.

(C) Yes! Notice that this shows that there could be an alterante cause, actually a "major causal factor": STRESS! I read it as something like this:

inc./dec. coffee --> inc./dec. stress --> inc./dec. HD

(D) No. This one may be appealing at first because it has a lot of the same terms. But this answer seems to me to be a trap. Why? Because the test makers are playing on the possible assumption you will make that the researchers smoke and smokers drink a ton of coffee (which may be true in the real world). Notice that if it WERE true that the researchers were smokers and if it WERE true that smokers drink at least 5 cups daily, then this would have much more weight. But, of course, we can't make that assumption.

(E) No. This may even help the argument because it strengthens the link between coffee drinking and HD.

How does this look??

[xareign]

Thank you.

And my apologies if my message was read as an effort to "improve" yours. I think you did an awesome job and do not need improvement.

I am hoping to post more of these and see if my reasoning on these problems is the kind I want to bring to the test.

[noah]

Thank you.

And my apologies if my message was read as an effort to "improve" yours. I think you did an awesome job and do not need improvement.

I am hoping to post more of these and see if my reasoning on these problems is the kind I want to bring to the test.

No no, you're more than welcome to do this sort of thing (though we won't always comment). Also, feel free to poke at teacher explanations here if you see something fishy--despite our best efforts to replace ourselves with robots, we remain human.

[WaltGrace1983]

I got to (C) by elimination but was initially hesitant to pick it because it seemed a bit confusing. Whenever that happens I always feel like I missed something in the stimulus or in the other answer choices! I need to trust my gut a bit more. Anyway, I'm going to break (C) down because I bet other people thought it was confusing too.

(C) goes back to talking about the study and poking at the validity of its conclusion (that lower coffee intake = lower risk of heart disease)

So it says that the study didn't "collect information," aka it neglected something.

The study neglected that levels of coffee consumption may be related to levels of stress.

Why is stress relevant? Because it is a "major causal factor in heart disease."

In other words, the study neglected the idea that maybe something else caused coffee consumption - stress - and that is important because stress causes heart disease.

This takes us back to the standard ways of weakening a causal argument: Show that something else (stress) caused A (coffee) and B (heart disease) rather than A → B.

Hope that helps someone!

[keane.xavier]

I've been lurking on these forums for quite some time, and while I intend to post more explanations in the near future, I thought that I should post a response to this question first. I feel as though I have an interpretation that differs slightly from WaltGrace and from Xareign, but I believe that there's an important distinction to be made on answer choice (C). While I'm posting primarily to gauge what others think about my explanation for answer choice (C), I'll nonetheless include my entire write-up.

We’re told that researchers found that those who drink five cups of coffee (or more) are at a 2.5x greater risk for heart disease, accounting for age and smoking habits. On the basis of their research, we’re told that they’ve limited their daily coffee intake to two cups.

Although disguised, this is a classic “correlation-causation” argument. The research team assumes that because coffee intake and risk of heart disease are correlated (5 cups: 2.5 x risk) that coffee intake must cause heart disease. Thus, they respond by lowering their coffee intake.

We’re being asked to select an answer choice that suggests that the researchers’ reduction of coffee intake might not reduce their risk of heart disease. Note that “might not” reduces the degree to which we must “prove” that their reduction in coffee intake won’t reduce their risk of heart disease.

In reducing their coffee intake, they’re assuming that coffee causes heart disease—what if it was something else?

A. If these individuals’ risk increased with each cup of coffee they drank beyond three cups, then presumably their risk would decrease if they’d not have had those cups. Thus, this suggests that if the researchers were to reduce their coffee intake to below three cups, they’d not be exposed to whatever additional heart disease risk they found from cups 3 – 5+. This would strengthen their chance of reducing heart disease by reducing coffee intake.

B. From this answer choice, we don’t know whether the per capita coffee consumption is above or below five cups of coffee. Furthermore, we don’t know whether this decrease in coffee consumption has reduced the per capita risk of heart disease. Thus, this answer choice provides no relevant information for our ability to assert that their decrease in coffee consumption might not reduce their risk of heart disease. In other words, this answer choice is out of scope.

C. This suggests that the researchers didn’t investigate whether it was variations in stress levels that actually caused the increased risk of heart disease. In other words, they didn’t rule out an alternative cause of heart disease. If coffee consumption and stress levels varied together, then perhaps it was stress that caused an increase in risk of heart disease. If they didn’t vary together, then perhaps it was the coffee. We don’t have enough information to know either way, but by not accounting for this major causal factor, this suggests that their reduction in coffee consumption might not reduce their risk of heart disease. Because we only need to prove that it might not have the desired effect, this answer choice is all that we need.

D. We’re told in the stimulus that they accounted for this. Thus, this answer choice may be eliminated, as this is something that we could already infer and that they already accounted for in the information presented in the first premise.

E. If heavy coffee consumption often causes an elevation in blood-cholesterol, which is an indicator as opposed to a causal factor of increased risk of heart disease, then this strengthens the ability for the study to assert that coffee consumption causes heart disease, as this provides a tangible indicator that they can track in addition to the correlation that they used above (5 cups: 2.5 x risk). Thus, this increases the likelihood that reducing their coffee consumption will reduce their risk of heart disease.

Also, as this is my first post, I'd like to thank the entire MLSAT community for the wonderful advice offered on these forums.

[tommywallach]

Welcome, Xavier! Thanks for the great post!