Q9 - Long-term and short-term relaxation

[peg_city]

I'm kicking myself for not getting this one....

Why is C right? Wouldn't it make more sense if it read "Recipients of long-term training are much MORE likely than recipients of short-term......."

Thanks

[patrice.antoine]

If it stated "more" then that would strengthen the argument.

The argument is saying that whether a recipeint has long-term or short-term treatment, both result in a decrease of anxiety levels and as such, the more expensive long-term treatment is unwarranted.

So we need to look for an answer choice that suggests that long-term treatment can be warranted despite being the more expensive route.

Answer choice C does this best because it is saying that compared to short-term treatment, recipients of long-term treatments are LESS likely to have a reoccurence of anxiety, which would mean that recipients have a reason outside the cost to take the more expensive route (its less likely that their anxiety would return if they take the long-term treatment).


Hope this helps!

[aileenann]

Let's start by considering the core of this argument. I think we can boil the argument down to the following:

symptoms decrease to normal level within shorter period with either long or short treatment

---->

for most people the longer and more expensive treatment is unwarranted


Now from this, if we are looking to weaken this argument we either need to add a premise that undermines the conclusion or we need to negate the assumption, which in this case seems to be something along the lines of there not being any other advantages to using the longer treatment.

Let's consider the answer choices in turn.

(A) doesn't get at the difference between long and short - in a way it just says that probably some people would get better even without any treatment at all. This is irrelevant to the specific conclusion that we shouldn't be using longer treatment on most people. It's definitely not the answer.

(B) is just adding detail that has nothing to do with weakening the conclusion that long-term treatment is not warranted for most people. This is just mixing up long term practitioners with short term treatment, which is out of scope. We are looking more generally at long v. short term treatment.

(C) goes to the assumption I highlighted above and negates it. The author is assuming there isn't some other relevant measure of success that differentiates these two, but (C) points to a possibility of additional benefits from long treatment not available from short treatment, undermining the cavalier conclusion that long treatment is rarely warranted.

(D) is irrelevant. What people think will work for them is out of scope for this argument. We care about what happens, not what people think happens. This is not the right answer.

(E) actually strengthens the argument by suggesting ways that short-term training could even be better than it long-term counterpart. This is the opposite of what we want.

So this brings us to (C). All of the others are irrelevant or strengthen the argument rather than weaken it. (C) really hurts the argument by going to the very assumption upon which the argument depends and negating it.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any comments or further questions!

[andrewgong01]

Let's start by considering the core of this argument. I think we can boil the argument down to the following:

symptoms decrease to normal level within shorter period with either long or short treatment

---->

for most people the longer and more expensive treatment is unwarranted


Now from this, if we are looking to weaken this argument we either need to add a premise that undermines the conclusion or we need to negate the assumption, which in this case seems to be something along the lines of there not being any other advantages to using the longer treatment.

Let's consider the answer choices in turn.

(A) doesn't get at the difference between long and short - in a way it just says that probably some people would get better even without any treatment at all. This is irrelevant to the specific conclusion that we shouldn't be using longer treatment on most people. It's definitely not the answer.

(B) is just adding detail that has nothing to do with weakening the conclusion that long-term treatment is not warranted for most people. This is just mixing up long term practitioners with short term treatment, which is out of scope. We are looking more generally at long v. short term treatment.

(C) goes to the assumption I highlighted above and negates it. The author is assuming there isn't some other relevant measure of success that differentiates these two, but (C) points to a possibility of additional benefits from long treatment not available from short treatment, undermining the cavalier conclusion that long treatment is rarely warranted.

(D) is irrelevant. What people think will work for them is out of scope for this argument. We care about what happens, not what people think happens. This is not the right answer.

(E) actually strengthens the argument by suggesting ways that short-term training could even be better than it long-term counterpart. This is the opposite of what we want.

So this brings us to (C). All of the others are irrelevant or strengthen the argument rather than weaken it. (C) really hurts the argument by going to the very assumption upon which the argument depends and negating it.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any comments or further questions!

I agree that there is a gap in the conclusion along the lines of there are no other reasons to seek the longer term care. But I don't understand how "C" gives us a reason that there are additional benefits to long term care? To me I agree with one of the earlier posts that "C" seems to be the opposite of what we want because "C" tells us they are already less likely to have recurring anxieties issues and hence there is no reason to see the doctor in the long term if you do not have recurring issues. In other words, I am not seeing how "C" offers an alternative explanation to why there are other reasons to seek long term treatments as it seems to suggest there is less need to seek long term treatment since it is not a recurring trait.

[ohthatpatrick]

(C) is saying this:

Sure, whether you do short term (3 months) or long term (6 months) relaxation training, your anxiety symptoms will have come down to a normal level by 3 months. BUT --- if you do short term relaxation, you're more likely to see the anxiety symptoms come back at a later date.

"Recurrences" - future episodes of anxiety, some weeks/months/years AFTER you did the relaxation training to quell your anxiety symptoms at the time.