It is true of both men and women that those who marry as young adults

Conclusion is that marriage does not cause people to live longer. The no immoderate drinking and smoking causes people to live longer => Target- strengthening

A- Less regularly in sports => passage talks about drinking and Smoking => also the sentence says marriage causes. but we have to prove that not marriage, but No D&S causes longer life
B- Strengthens that marriage causes -> opposite of target. Also it talks of a different subset of people. People already smoking at the time of marriage but passage says young people have fewer unhealthy habits- this is in the few people
C- Talks of a different conclusion. That smokers marry smokers and drinkers marry drinkers.- not relevant to arguement
D- Again sentence provesthat marriage causes. and talks if a different subset of people.
E- Yes, this says that when the apparent cause- marriage - is not there, the effect is still there. => Strengthening that marriage does not cause, No D&S causes longer life.

Answer E

Assumption: It is true of both men and women that those who marry as young adults live longer than those who never marry.
Conclusion: This does not show that marriage causes people to live longer, compared with other people of the same age, young adults who are about to get married have fewer of the unhealthy habits that can cause a person to have a shorter life, most notably smoking and immoderate drinking of alcohol.
Argument: Married or non-married longer life with healthy or non-healthy longer life

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument above?

(A) Marriage tends to cause people to engage less regularly in sports that involve risk of bodily harm.
Flaw: Cause of marriage speaking about habits, no corelation for longer life

(B) A married person who has an unhealthy habit is more likely to give up that habit
than a person with the same habit who is unmarried.
Flaw: Cause of marriage lead to give up habit compare to non-married person

(C) A person who smokes is much more likely than a non-smoker to marry a person
who smokes at the time of marriage, and the same is true for people who drink alcohol immoderately
Flaw: comparison between Smoker and non-smoker or person who drink and who don’t drink to marry a person – Irrelavant

(D) Among people who marry as young adults, most of those who give up an unhealthy habit after marriage
do not resume the habit later in life.
Flaw: this stem is very close to be strengthen the argument, but the concern here is, it doesn’t compare with another, to show its supremacy, this gives more details about the person after marriage life. Most of those defines a ratio among the people who resume and who don’t resume, adds up to another point in flaw

(E) Among people who as young adults neither drink alcohol immoderately nor smoke,
those who never marry live as long as those who marry.
Correct: Young adults or married person, but a person who neither drink nor smoke live life longer as person who does.

It is true of both men and women that those who marry as young adults live longer than those who never marry. This does not show that marriage causes people to live longer, since, as compared with other people of the same age, young adults who are about to get married have fewer of the unhealthy habits that can cause a person to have a shorter life, most notably smoking and immoderate drinking of alcohol.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument above?


(A) Marriage tends to cause people to engage less regularly in sports that involve risk of bodily harm.

(B) A married person who has an unhealthy habit is more likely to give up that habit than a person with the same habit who is unmarried.

(C) A person who smokes is much more likely than a nonsmoker to marry a person who smokes at the time of marriage, and the same is true for people who drink alcohol immoderately.

(D) Among people who marry as young adults, most of those who give up an unhealthy habit after marriage do not resume the habit later in life.

(E) Among people who as young adults neither drink alcohol immoderately nor smoke, those who never marry live as long as those who marry.

Answer :I'm so stupid I chose B but as I look back, B is clearly a weakener. The conclusion we are trying to reinforce is : it's not marriage that makes people live longer, but it's the healthy habits that people have before the marriage.

A : really irrelevant

B : weakener : if a person who has bad habit is likely to give it up once he gets married, then it's very likely that it's in fact the marriage that makes people live longer, because they change and remove their bad habits because of their marriage. B out

C : neutral, doesnt weaker nor strenghten

D : I was tempted to choose this one, but it was because I misunderstood the question, it's also a weaker very similar to B, so out. Because if people give up an unhealthy habit it could be proof that it's marriage that makes people live longer, it doesnt weaken a lot the argument, but it sures dont strengthen it

E : Strengthen the conclusion, if people who dont marry and dont drink live as long as the people who are married and dont drink, then it might be true that marriage dont cause people to live longer

Argument main conclusion: Fewer bad habit is the key to longer, not marriage. Option which is focusing on this point is the answer

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ChiranjeevSingh
AnishPassi
GMATNinja

was just wondering if you could give your analysis on this question.

what are we strengthening actually ?
(1) marriages DONT cause people to live longer
OR
(2) marriages DONT cause people to live longer because of this specific reason SPECIFICALLY : young adults who are about to get married have fewer of the unhealthy habits that can cause a person to have a shorter life, most notably smoking and immoderate drinking of alcohol.

I think it was (2) but perhaps I am wrong

Am i looking at this, the wrong way perhaps ?

Hi KarishmaB - i was wondering if this was a strengthener or weakener or none of the above. ?



I think this would be a strengthener.

Here is why

(1) per the premise, married adults LIVE LONGER
(2) per (option F) -- marriage/kids GIVE stress

So how come married adults LIVE LONGER then ?

(3) All the more reason given in the argument is true : that young adults who are about to get married have fewer UNHEALTHY habits

Hence marriage certainly cannot be the reason why married adults LIVE LONGER

Thoughts ?

Hi KarishmaB – the statement in red above confused me

If you look at option (E) – (E) is NOT saying fewer bad habits are responsible for longer life

Reviewing (option E) – (option E) is referring to 2 groups

BOTH GROUPS have NO BAD HABBITS

Group X : no bad habits + marriage
Group Y : no bad habits + no marriage

Group X and Group Y live to the same age.

One cannot conclude, given both Groups (Group x and group y) share the common characteristic of "NO BAD HABBITS" - that HAVING NO BAD HABBITS is better than HAVING BAD HABBITS, if you want to live longer

Because - Group X and Group Y share a common characteristic.

Instead, i think from (E) - one can conclude that -

“Marriage” HAS ZERO EFFECT on longevity as both groups (Group x and group Y) live to the same age.

Given “marriage” has ZERO EFFECT on longevity --> this strengthens the main conclusion – marriage DOES NOT CAUSE people to live longer

Thoughts ?

E is the correct choice because it strengthens the conclusion. Trap answer choice B and D weaken the conclusion instead.

Posted from my mobile device

There are two variables the argument is discussing - 'bad habits' and 'marriage' and their impact on long life.
The argument concedes that a correlation exists between marriage and long life but it says that the underlying cause is actually bad habits.
Married people have fewer bad habits and hence longer life. So marriage is not the reason for longer life; instead, 'fewer bad habits' is the reason for longer life.

Option (E) shows that when we take away the 'bad habits' variable from the picture, marriage has NO impact on long life. It means that bad habits were the ones impacting long life, not marriage.

Hi KarishmaB,

Coming to OPTION D and the reasoning you mentioned,




I was not able to interpret the intended meaning as highlighted in Red.

I thought OPTION D conveys that it is the " inner will power " of married people that makes them give up unhealthy habits not the marriage... Hence , I went with OPTION D.

What should be done to think in the right way , the way author wants us to interpret OPTION D?

Regards

Look, we already know that those who get married have longer lives.
The author says that marriage doesn't lead to longer life (not like marriage makes people happy and extends their life or something like that). He says that the reason for longer life is that people who are about to get married have fewer bad habits.
How can we show that actually fewer bad habits lead to longer life? If people with fewer bad habits (irrespective of their marriage status) live longer lives then we can say that fewer bad habits are the actual reason. This is what (E) does.

Now consider (D)

(D) Among people who marry as young adults, most of those who give up an unhealthy habit after marriage do not resume the habit later in life.

Is this a difference between married and unmarried people? We don't know. What if unmarried people also after giving a bad habit do not resume it later in life? Then this does not give us any distinction between married and unmarried people. Hence it doesn't help us in any way.
If unmarried people after giving up a bad habit do resume it later, then it seems that marriage has a role to play in keeping habits at bay (perhaps the partner doesn't let them restart). But that is not what we want. We want to say that 'married or not' is irrelevant. That is given by option (E)

Conclusion - Marriage not the cause of long life. People with healthy habits live longer and are on average married rather than single.
Type - Strengthen

(A) Marriage tends to cause people to engage less regularly in sports that involve risk of bodily harm. - Weakens. This can be dropped straight out. Drop

(B) A married person who has an unhealthy habit is more likely to give up that habit than a person with the same habit who is unmarried. - Weakens - Supports marriage. Drop

(C) A person who smokes is much more likely than a nonsmoker to marry a person who smokes at the time of marriage, and the same is true for people who drink alcohol immoderately. Okay - Are people more likely to choose partners based on similar values/traits? Yes. Does that mean healthy habits leads to longer life and not marriage? Well, doesn't answer the question. Drop

(D) Among people who marry as young adults, most of those who give up an unhealthy habit after marriage do not resume the habit later in life. Weakens - Supports marraige. Drop

(E) Among people who as young adults neither drink alcohol immoderately nor smoke, those who never marry live as long as those who marry. - Supports the cause-effect link. Healthy habits and not marriage lead to long life. Keep