Q25 - A 1991 calculation was made to

[mturner]

Why does C weaken the argument?

Is it because in the answer there is nothing to suggest that medical or nursing home care would be a burden to society?

I was able to narrow down the answer choices to A and C. I picked A, but my reasoning above leads me to believe that's what I should have been thinking and should have picked C.

What say you???

[noah]

Tough question!

It's a weakener, so it's in the assumption family, so let's find the core:

people who are sedentary end up costing society $1,650 --> people choosing to live a sedentary life is significant burden for society.

The gap that I first noticed is whether $1,650 is a significant burden. Maybe that's insignificant.

But, it turns out that the answer plays on a different issue. It's the jump from "people who live a sedentary life" to "people's voluntary choice not to exercise." Who's to say that those people made a voluntary choice?

(C) plays on this issue. It turns out, according to this answer, that the folks who end up costing society money (because of nursing home care, etc.) were predisposed to live a sedentary life. It turns out that sedentary lifestyle doesn't cause the expense, but the expense, so to speaks, requires (or predisposes) the sedentary lifestyle.

As for the wrong answers:

(A) is tempting, however, even if these folks aren't exercising after work, if their employment requires physical exertion, they're not living a sedentary life. Subtly out of scope!

(B) is out of scope. It's tempting if you thought "well, those people didn't make a choice -- they didn't know anything about the issue!" Here's another version of (B) to make its issue a bit more obvious: "Exercise is a topic that is never discussed on NPR or talked about in the cafe on First Avenue and 32nd st." Who says that we need that source of information to be informed?

Plus, even if we accept that you'd need your doctor to tell you about exercise to know that it's good for you, you still could voluntarily choose not to do it. Analogously, I might not know that eating cat food will fix my thinning hair problem (because neither my cat nor doctor informed me), but I still can voluntarily choose not to eat it.

(D) is irrelevant - it's discussing folks who are exercising and the choices they make. This argument is essentially about couch potatoes!

(E) is a premise-booster. It's just confirming that exercise is a good thing. We more or less know that from the premise, and (E) doesn't affect the argument.

Can you figure out something that would strengthen this argument?

[mturner]

Would it be a situation in which someone lives a sedentary lifestyle AND chooses not to exercise? Or since 1991 the lifetime average of additional health-care costs of sedentary people has increased?

[noah]

Would it be a situation in which someone lives a sedentary lifestyle AND chooses not to exercise? Or since 1991 the lifetime average of additional health-care costs of sedentary people has increased?

I like your first one - it establishes that living that life is a choice. The second one is a bit off since the argument is about the burden being significant, not that it's increasing. A strengthener, like a weakener, will address a gap in the argument.

Nice work.

[gmatalongthewatchtower]

Why is B) out of scope? Doesn't it place a dent in the reasoning in the sense that patients do not know about the benefits of exercise. It's not that they do not exercise voluntarily but they don't know about it....Thoughts?

[noah]

Why is B) out of scope? Doesn't it place a dent in the reasoning in the sense that patients do not know about the benefits of exercise. It's not that they do not exercise voluntarily but they don't know about it....Thoughts?

good question. I went back and bulked up the discussion of (B) - tell me if that clears it up.

[wj097]

As for the wrong answers:

(A) is tempting, however, even if these folks aren't exercising after work, if their employment requires physical exertion, they're not living a sedentary life. Subtly out of scope!

Hey Noah,

I just spent so much time going back and forth between (A) and (C), it didn't really matter so much that I got the answer at the end...

My interpretation of the gap was slightly different from yours that it really made (A) a viable answer choice.
While I more or less agree with the one that addresses the connection between $1650 and significant burden on society, bit different interpretation on the one between "sedentary life" and "voluntary choice not to exercise"; to me the assumption seemed to be that "ALL who voluntarily choose not to exercise, LIVE sedentary life" (if we negate i.e., SOME who voluntarily choose not to exercise, DO NOT LIVE sedentary life then we just cannot conclude as the group discussed in the premise and the conclusion simply are not representative of another). And (A) would dent this very assumption as it says that there are actually ppl who choose not to exercise, and DO NOT LIVE sedentary life...

I only crossed out (A) on a minor wording issue...I made distinction between "choosing not to exercise" and "VOLUNTARILY choosing not to exercise."...and also because of the word "regular" which led me to think that this is not quite of a scope issue but rather a small detail issue.... can some plz verify???

[xw73]

Can anyone help on (A)?

I think (A)'s problem is due to "many" and "regular" but not its scope. Obviously, (D) and (E) is out of scope. But we cannot say so for (A).

If (A) is out of scope, then it's like to say we cannot weaken a causal link, for example A-->B, by showing that some A will not result in B because something "not B" is out of scope. Clearly, in this case, "not B" is not out of scope; it's relevant.

[ohthatpatrick]

I agree with you that 'many' makes (A) have very little punching power.

But ultimately, I just don't see how it weakens the argument. Maybe people would read (A) and think, "aha! some people APPEARED to be sedentary to this calculation, but actually they were active ... it's just that they were active at work, rather than being active in their free time."

But the calculation related to "people who live a sedentary life". It didn't say "people who do/don't regularly exercise in their free time". So we would assume that the people described in (A) were counted as non-sedentary by the 1991 calculation.

If you are a mailman who walks through a neighborhood hand-delivering mail, you do NOT live a sedentary life, even if you crash on your couch until bedtime when you get home.

So to me (A) is just describing one type of non-sedentary person: the type that gets their exercise at work, so they don't tend to seek out or need exercise in their free time.

That's great, who cares? Other non-sedentary people might get their exercise at home entertaining their young children.

What Noah was saying with (A) being out of scope is that it's about NON-sedentary people.

While I agree that in causal arguments we are concerned with people who did/didn't experience the supposed cause and with people who did/didn't experience the supposed results.

But this argument doesn't seem to fit that mold to me.

The causal/explanation type argument you're referring to has
- a phenom or a correlation in the PREM
and
- an explanation for phenom or causal relationship in the CONC

This argument has a causal figure in the PREM. The calculation says, "living a sedentary lifestyle causes an extra $1650 in expenses for society" vs. an 'ordinary' (non-sedentary) lifestyle.

The conclusion makes two big language shifts ... "the VOLUNTARY choice not to exercise causes a SIGNIFICANT BURDEN on society".

Since this argument isn't about assessing causality, but rather assessing the gap between the causal claim cited in the 1991 calculation and the causal claim cited in the conclusion, we really don't care about non-sedentary people.

Hope this helps.

[xw73]

Hi ohthatpatrick, thank you very much for your explanation!!! it really helps!

[deedubbew]

Even though A mentions a scenario where these people are not sedentary, it still weakens the conclusion by stating that many people who voluntarily don't exercise, do not place a burden on society. How can I eliminate this answer choice for certain?

[EstebanH878]

Hi,

I get this question is testing causation and so Answer C is correct because it presents a reversal of the causation is implied in the stimulus. However, the main thing that bugs me is the "people's voluntary choice to not exercise" part of the conclusion. If people have a condition that predisposes them to a sedentary lifestyle as mentioned in answer C, wouldn't that mean they can't voluntarily choose to not exercise? They can't exercise because they have a condition that forces them to have a sedentary lifestyle. On the other hand, the people in answer choice A voluntarily choose to not exercise outside of work and the exercise they do at work is not voluntary. But they are not placing a significant burden on society since they are not living a sedentary lifestyle and thus have no added healthcare costs. So answer choice A would weaken the conclusion since its showing that voluntary non-exercise is not always a burden to society. Had the conclusion read "thus sedentary lifestyles place an undue burden on society" I would agree why it is C. But by conflating "sedentary lifestyle" with "voluntary choice to not exercise" the stimulus opens itself up to ambiguity.

I guess my broader question is in weaken questions how much should you focus on weakening the conclusion vs weakening the premises that tie to the conclusion because in this case, the conclusion seems fairly irrelevant to the premises offered since a sedentary lifestyle does not equal voluntarily not choosing to exercise. At least we are taught not to believe they would be the same thing unless explicitly mentioned in the stimulus