Q22 - Doctors in Britain have long suspected

[mcrittell]

I tried negating E, and I don't understand how that would break the argument, thus making it correct.

[noah]

Let's take a look!

The conclusion: when you wear tinted glasses, it must be because you're depressed or hypochondriacal. In other words, the depressions causes you to wear the glasses.

Why? Because tests confirmed that folks who wear tinted eyeglasses are especially likely to be depressed and hypochondriacal.

What's the gap? Well, the correlation/causation issue should be jumping out at you here. Just because these two things tend to occur together doesn't mean one causes the other. It could be that the causation is reversed, or something causes both of them.

(E) plays on this issue. Perhaps the glasses cause the depression, not, as the argument concludes, the other way around. Negated, we see that the glasses do cause depression, which does call into question the argument - could we draw that conclusion based on the evidence given if we knew that tinted glasses cause the depression? No.

As for the other answers:

(A) is tempting, as it addresses causation. But it establishes a cause for depression, we're looking at whether we can establish the cause for wearing the glasses.

(B) is out of scope. It's discussing what folks think about wearing glasses - this doesn't affect causation (and if you think it does, you've added in a whole lot of assumptions).

(C) is similar to (A) in that it tempts you with causation, but again, this is addressing why someone would be depressed, not why someone would wear the glasses.

(D) is funny! And perhaps tempting. It seems like a reason for wearing glasses, but the glasses could serve as a signal without that being the reason that the glasses are worn.

Now, time to go throw out those rose-colored glasses...

[jones.mchandler]

In my Cambridge packets this question is cited as "PT 18 S4 Q23", or number 150 in the weaken packet, and it has the correct answe as B.

Am I missing something?

[tommywallach]

Hey Jones,

Yep! If you check the preptest, there are two questions associated with this prompt (that happens about once a test). So you're thinking of question 23, which is a Weaken EXCEPT question. Question 22 is a straight Assumption question.

-t

[gaheexlee]

Hello, I apologize if this is a 'noob' question but when I read the conclusion, because of the sufficient indicator, "when," I diagrammed it in reverse as : Glasses -> Tendency to be depressed. Meaning I had read it as "If you wear the glasses, then that means you have a tendency to be depressed."

I thought "when" was a indicator for something being sufficient, not necessary. Could you please help me out?

Thank you in advance!

[einuoa]

Hello, I apologize if this is a 'noob' question but when I read the conclusion, because of the sufficient indicator, "when," I diagrammed it in reverse as : Glasses -> Tendency to be depressed. Meaning I had read it as "If you wear the glasses, then that means you have a tendency to be depressed."

I thought "when" was a indicator for something being sufficient, not necessary. Could you please help me out?

Thank you in advance!

I actually diagrammed it that way as well, and I chose B because I diagrammed that way because I thought, well if we negate B, then wearers do think of tinted glasses as a means of distancing themselves, therefore it may not necessarily mean that they're depressed because that could be a coincidence!

But, after thinking about this a little bit, I realized that the stimulus said 'because' therefore it's a causal relationship and you can't really diagram it because we diagram correlations. In this case, if you rearrange the sentence, it's
"Because the wearer has a tendency to be depressed or hypochondriacal, it can be concluded that such glasses are worn" which actually reverses the relationship you diagrammed!

I hope this helps, and I thought this was a hard question because of that last sentence.

[uhdang]

Hi, I have a question regarding B).

I crossed B) out because what B) is claiming is a direct objection to a claim from the passage:

"Perhaps people whose relationship to the world is psychologically painful choose such glasses to reduce visual stimulation ... "

So, I thought that B) disapproves doctors' hypothesis, thereby weakens the conclusion.

What do you think?

[rinagoldfield]

Hi uhdang,

Can you say more about how you see (B) weakening that claim?

I think I see where you are coming from -- if the wearers do not see the glasses as distancing, then perhaps the wearers are not trying to reduce their visual stimulation.

On the other hand, how wearers think of the glasses may not accurately reflect underlying psychological issues. For example, my friend might not THINK her drinking is a reflection of her anxiety, when in fact her drinking does stem from her anxiety. (She might be in denial.) Similarly, these glasses wearers might be in denial. As a result, I would argue that how wearers THINK about the glasses is out of scope rather than weakening.

Let me know your thoughts!

--Rina

[uhdang]

Thank you for the reply!

Your thoughts on why I thought B) weakens the argument is pretty much correct. And combined with your reasoning, I think I understand why this is "out of scope" not "weakening."
Tell me if my reasoning is wrong.

Where I made a mistake was that I thought "reducing visual stimulation" is on the same scope with "distancing themselves from other people." I thought, since those people feel that living in the world is psychologically painful, they would want to distance themselves from other people (This is where I made a false assumption although it is not given anywhere). So, I used to think that negation of this (wearers do NOT consider it as a means of distancing themselves from other people), or the answer choice B), would directly oppose what was claimed in the passage, thereby weakening.

However, what I realized after reading your post is that the reason for wearers to choose tinted glasses is to reduce visual stimulation, NOT to distance themselves from other people. (again, here is what I made the false assumption that those two are on the same scope.) So, stating "out of scope" alternative reason for people to wear the glasses wouldn't have any effect to the argument at all!!

To illustrate with an example, let's say an author is arguing, "Probably people ride bicycles to exercise" But you can't oppose this argument by saying, "A person does not think that riding a bicycle gets you from one place to the other faster than walking." "exercising" and "getting somewhere faster" isn't in the same line of scope. If you were to weaken the argument, you would want to say, "People don't think that riding bicycle is a good exercise."

Having reasoned this far, would it weaken the argument if the answer choice says, "wearers do not think of the tinted glasses as a means of reducing visual stimulation."?

Am I on the right track?

Thanks again for the reply!

[rinagoldfield]

Hi uhdang,

I love your analysis. Great work! Thanks for responding.

Best,
Rina

[seychelles1718]

I understand why E is the correct answer but don't really understand why each wrong asnwer is wrong..

could anyone walk me through this question???

[tommywallach]

Hey Dy,

Noah did, up above!

-t