Bunuel wrote:
Meditation can lead to reduced stress, increased concentration, and a longer life. And contrary to what many skeptics believe, regular meditation is more important than the duration of each session. While longer sessions produce better results, all the benefits listed above are possible from daily meditation sessions that are as short as ten minutes.
Which of the following is best supported by the statement above?
(A) Mediation is only effective if it is performed on a daily basis.
(B) People who meditate for ten minutes each day will live longer than those who meditate less frequently.
(C) It is possible to achieve as much of a gain in life expectancy from ten minutes of meditation per day as from less frequent meditation sessions of an hour or longer.
(D) Meditating less frequently than once per day will lead to less positive benefits than meditating daily.
(E) Daily meditation sessions of an hour or longer can increase one's life expectancy.
VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:
With any Inference question, you must select the answer choice that must be true based on the information in the passage. Here, several choices might seem very likely, but the "must be true" standard is crucial for inferences.
Choice E must be true. The premises state that "while longer sessions produce better results, all of the above benefits (including a longer life) are possible from daily-ten minute sessions." From that, you can infer that longer sessions (an hour vs. ten minutes) would at least produce the same benefits, if not better. Additionally, note the easier-to-prove word "can" in "can increase one's life expectancy." This is much easier to prove than "will" or "only," words you see in other answer choices.
Among the other choices, choice A goes too far with "only." While the last sentence suggests that daily sessions are effective, the previous sentence uses "regular meditation" (so not necessarily "daily"), and ultimately there is nothing to suggest that even infrequent sessions are completely ineffective.
Choice B goes too far with the prediction "will" - for one, the argument doesn't give enough information to compare daily ten-minute sessions with, say, five-days-per-week hour-long sessions. But just as damning is the word "will" - predictions are just very hard to prove. Can you conceive of a situation in which people who meditate for ten minutes each day live shorter (too much radiation from their Headspace app?)? If so, "will" is not necessarily true.
Choice C is wrong for similar reasons as A is wrong: the hard fact is that "regular" meditation is more important than the duration of each session, but "regular" does not necessarily mean "daily" so this comparison is impossible to make without further information. For the same reason, choice D is also incorrect.