Q18 - An analysis of the language of social media posts

[Laura Damone]

Question Type:
Weakener

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: the analysis of language in social media posts shows that a person's mood typically goes from happy in the morning through a period of decline but improves again in the evening. Premise: a study about the use of words associated with positive moods shows those words are used lot in the morning but use decreases to a low point mid-afternoon then increases sharply in the evening.

Answer Anticipation:
There's a big gap here between words associated with positive moods and actual positive moods, so our correct answer might target that gap. There's also a gap between social media and reality. To what extent do our posts really reflect our feelings?

Correct answer:
E

Answer choice analysis:
(A) The study cited is about average daily progression. Weekly mood progression trends wouldn't impact this average because they don't account for the daily time differences that are the crux of this argument.

(B) If this is true, so what? It could still be the case that enough people use these words for the study to be representative of the population at large.

(C) This one starts out strong: if the frequency of word use on social media isn't indicative of actual mood, we're golden. Unfortunately, this one takes a turn for the worse midway through. So what if social media word use isn't indicative of word use elsewhere? This doesn't address the gap between word use and acutal mood, so it doesn't weaken.

(D) This is a tricky one. If there were just way more posts in the morning and evening than in the afternoon, it would explain why there was more positive word use during those times another way, and that would weaken the argument. But D compares the number of posts in the morning and the evening only, so it doesn't establish an alternative explanation.

(E) This tricky answer might not seem right at first because it is dealing with a small subset of the study: the messages posted in the evening. But if folks who make positive language posts in the evening don't make them in the morning, the individual trajectory from positive morning mood through afternoon low point back to positive mood in the evening falls apart. That makes this our correct answer.

Takeaway/Pattern:
Sometimes even the best predictions don't help you answer the question. This is particularly common in the 15-22 range of the LR section because these questions are designed to be hard. Some are designed to have nice clear predictions that are nowhere in the answer set, and dense confusing right answers that are hard to recognize as correct. Here, working wrong to right is critical.

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