The revolves around the table the insurance company developed that lists standard weight ranges for various heights. The conclusion, I believe, is that if people with weight outside the given range (WO) modified their weight to fall into the proper range (WI) , then their life expectancy improves (HLE). The premise stated right before states that policy holders within weight to height range lived longer then those outside the range .
C = WO -> WI -> HLE
P = WI greater than WO
We're asked to find the assumption that the argument relies on.
I eliminated the choices to (B) and (E), but I can't understand why (E) was actually the scored response. My thought, based on the passage, was that the argument was trying to get people into the tables weight range so they would live longer.
LSAT Forum
3 postsPage 1 of 1
-
- sstainb
-
Thanks Received: 0
- Forum Guests
- Posts: 2
- Joined: June 05th, 2012
-
- timmydoeslsat
-
Thanks Received: 887
-
Atticus Finch
- Posts: 1136
- Joined: June 20th, 2011
- This post thanked 2 times.
- Most Thanked
- First Responder
Re: Q8 - Life Insurance Policyholders
You are correct, that is the conclusion. This is a correlation-causation issue with another issue of assuming that a prescription actually works.
We know that based on that data, people within the weight range live longer than those outside that range. We do not know that this is what is causing the longer life expectancy. Perhaps those within that range are more likely to go to the doctor, they are richer and can afford top notch medicines and treatment, etc.
Nonetheless, the argument is assuming that the weight is causing the longer life. But not only that, it is also jumping to the idea that moving from one weight range to another will actually work in extending their life. Even though this is not a good argument, we need to be in defender/protector mode and keep this argument from falling apart.
Answer choices:
A) Conclusion is saying if they would. We could actually have no one do this and it would not hurt our argument.
B) Intend? The intention behind it is irrelevant.
C) This is the most tempting one for me. If we negate this and said that it does not include accidents along with the natural caused deaths...we still do not have the distinction among the weights. This would not kill our argument as we do not know how accidents affect the numbers with weight ranges.
D) Nothing is necessary about the life expectancies between the policyholders and the general population.
E) Negate this answer choice. People's efforts to modify their weight to conform to a given range would damage their health enough to decrease their overall life expectancies.
This answer choice is challenging that the prescription works.
We know that based on that data, people within the weight range live longer than those outside that range. We do not know that this is what is causing the longer life expectancy. Perhaps those within that range are more likely to go to the doctor, they are richer and can afford top notch medicines and treatment, etc.
Nonetheless, the argument is assuming that the weight is causing the longer life. But not only that, it is also jumping to the idea that moving from one weight range to another will actually work in extending their life. Even though this is not a good argument, we need to be in defender/protector mode and keep this argument from falling apart.
Answer choices:
A) Conclusion is saying if they would. We could actually have no one do this and it would not hurt our argument.
B) Intend? The intention behind it is irrelevant.
C) This is the most tempting one for me. If we negate this and said that it does not include accidents along with the natural caused deaths...we still do not have the distinction among the weights. This would not kill our argument as we do not know how accidents affect the numbers with weight ranges.
D) Nothing is necessary about the life expectancies between the policyholders and the general population.
E) Negate this answer choice. People's efforts to modify their weight to conform to a given range would damage their health enough to decrease their overall life expectancies.
This answer choice is challenging that the prescription works.
-
- WaltGrace1983
-
Thanks Received: 207
-
Atticus Finch
- Posts: 837
- Joined: March 30th, 2013
- This post thanked 1 time.
- Most Thanked
- Most Thankful
- First Responder
Re: Q8 - Life Insurance Policyholders
Really liked Timmy's explanation above and I'll add more to it because I got this one wrong. I don't know what I was thinking! I picked (D) so I'll go through my thought processes and see what happened here. Hopefully it will help someone in the future!
The most tempting answer choices for me were (C) - (E). Whenever I am down to three answer choices I know that I did something wrong
. (A) and (B) can be eliminated quite easily for relevance. We don't care about what the chart was intended to do because the point is that the argument ascribes what the chart does. The author says the chart (and the observations of people who fall within its ranges) does show you how to improve your life expectancy. Similiarly, we don't care if some people are unwilling to change their weight. "Unwillingness" doesn't imply that they won't and this ultimately does nothing to show why or why not the conclusion doesn't work from the premises. So what if they are unwilling? The author is just saying that doing X will lead to effect Y.
Now onto the rest...
(C) is a tricky one because it makes us think, "okay well what if people died due to other uncontrollable reasons and thus following this chart may not lead to overall higher life expectancies. What if everyone who was in the "overweight" category just happened to die by getting hit by a bus when really they would have lived longer?" These are good thoughts to have! The problem is that this is actually the opposite of what we want. We want the table to include only people that died of natural causes. Why? Because the chart is supposed to say something about life expectancy - aka natural death. (C) is definitely a tricky one in the heat of the moment but ultimately it can be eliminated confidently with this in mind.
(D) was what I thought was the correct answer. My thought process was flawed though. I was thinking, "well maybe the people on this chart naturally have a longer life expectancy so we shouldn't really base what people should do on that!" This is wrong thinking though because we don't need to compare the people with and people without policies. We are only talking about comparing the people that fall outside the weight bracket and people that fall inside the weight bracket.
(E) is the correct answer. If we negate (E) we get a perfect conclusion breaker: "People's efforts would damage their health enough to decrease their overall life expectancy." There is no way that they can improve their life expectancies while simultaneously decreasing their life expectancies
.
The most tempting answer choices for me were (C) - (E). Whenever I am down to three answer choices I know that I did something wrong
. (A) and (B) can be eliminated quite easily for relevance. We don't care about what the chart was intended to do because the point is that the argument ascribes what the chart does. The author says the chart (and the observations of people who fall within its ranges) does show you how to improve your life expectancy. Similiarly, we don't care if some people are unwilling to change their weight. "Unwillingness" doesn't imply that they won't and this ultimately does nothing to show why or why not the conclusion doesn't work from the premises. So what if they are unwilling? The author is just saying that doing X will lead to effect Y. Now onto the rest...
(C) is a tricky one because it makes us think, "okay well what if people died due to other uncontrollable reasons and thus following this chart may not lead to overall higher life expectancies. What if everyone who was in the "overweight" category just happened to die by getting hit by a bus when really they would have lived longer?" These are good thoughts to have! The problem is that this is actually the opposite of what we want. We want the table to include only people that died of natural causes. Why? Because the chart is supposed to say something about life expectancy - aka natural death. (C) is definitely a tricky one in the heat of the moment but ultimately it can be eliminated confidently with this in mind.
(D) was what I thought was the correct answer. My thought process was flawed though. I was thinking, "well maybe the people on this chart naturally have a longer life expectancy so we shouldn't really base what people should do on that!" This is wrong thinking though because we don't need to compare the people with and people without policies. We are only talking about comparing the people that fall outside the weight bracket and people that fall inside the weight bracket.
(E) is the correct answer. If we negate (E) we get a perfect conclusion breaker: "People's efforts would damage their health enough to decrease their overall life expectancy." There is no way that they can improve their life expectancies while simultaneously decreasing their life expectancies
.
3 posts Page 1 of 1