Bunuel wrote:
A team of pediatricians recently announced that pet birds are more likely to bite children under age 13 than people of any other age group. The team’s finding was based on a study showing that the majority of all bird bites requiring medical attention involved children under 13. The study also found that the birds most likely to bite are cockatiels and parakeets.
Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the pediatricians’ conclusion that birds are more likely to bite children under age 13 than people of any other age group?
(A) More than half of bird bites not requiring medical attention, which exceed the number requiring such attention, involve people aged 13 and older.
(B) The majority of bird bites resulting in the death of the bitten person involve people aged 65 and older.
(C) Many serious bird bites affecting children under age 13 are inflicted by birds other than cockatiels and parakeets.
(D) Most bird bites in children under age 13 that require medical attention are far less serious than they initially appear.
(E) Most parents can learn to treat bird bites effectively if they avail themselves of a small amount of medical information.
Project CR Butler: Critical Reasoning
For all CR butler Questions Click HereKAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
STEP 1: IDENTIFY THE QUESTION TYPEThis stem contains a wealth of helpful information. Not only do you see the telltale key word “weaken” indicating the question type, but the conclusion of the argument is stated directly in the stem. Part of your job is already done.
STEP 2: UNTANGLE THE STIMULUSThe conclusion of the pediatricians is that pet birds are more likely to bite young children than bite older people. The evidence for this is a study, which should ring alarm bells for representativeness issues. The study indicates that most bird-bite injuries that required medical attention were to young children.
STEP 3: PREDICT THE ANSWERBut not all bird bites necessarily require medical attention, so in order for this study’s results to prove that birds are more likely to bite young children overall, you need proof that the bird bites requiring medical attention are representative of all bird bites. So to weaken this argument, find a choice that essentially says, “Bites that require medical attention are not representative of bites in general.”
STEP 4: EVALUATE THE CHOICESYou’ll then be drawn to (A): looking at all bird-bite injuries reveals that most of them don’t require medical attention, and of those that don’t, more than half of them are suffered by people over the age of 13. (A) indicates that birds are just as likely, if not more likely, to bite people over the age of 13 as to bite younger children. Thus,
(A) is the correct answer. Just because senior citizens are more likely to die from bird bites, as (B) says, doesn’t mean that they’re more likely to be bitten in the first place. (C) improperly seizes on the last sentence of the argument, which is a tangential statement that has no bearing on the overall conclusion. (D) is off base because the argument deals with the likelihood that a bird will bite someone, not with the likelihood that the bite is serious. (E) commits a similar error by dealing with treatment; this argument is only concerned with the relative frequency of bird bites occurring in the first place and not with the treatment plans for bites that have already occurred.
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14 Mar 2021, 23:15
85%
(01:34)
correct 
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