Meditation can lead to reduced stress, increased concentration, and

Meditation can lead to reduced stress, increased concentration, and a longer life.

Meditation has X,Y, and Z benefits

And contrary to what many skeptics believe, regular meditation is more important than the duration of each session.


The consistency I.E. meditate every day is > than one hour today and then two hours next week

While longer sessions produce better results, all the benefits listed above are possible from daily meditation sessions that are as short as ten minutes.


All the benefits= 10 minutes of session EVERY day

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.

C is not true simply because the benefits are = from short and long sessions. But we do know from the argument that ASLL the benefits are from the ten minutes sessions regularly practiced

Therefore C is wrong

PS: good question but not a GMAT alike question, definitely

why is D wrong? Can somebody explain

D has all possibility of supporting the argument. Why D is wrong ?

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.

 
­Option D uses the word "will". It is not certain that a person's life expectancy must increase more if s/he meditates daily than less frequently. It may happen, which is why can is a better word.
Hence E is the correct answer.

 
­Choice D: Meditating less frequently than once per day will lead to less positive benefits than meditating daily.

It is too extreme and conclusive and does not state anything about the duration part mentioned in the argument.

Let me explain this with an example:

Choice D implies that if a person skips just one day of meditation then he will get fewer positive benefits than if he meditates daily. It does not state anything about the duration of the meditation in each case. For instance, consider a person has been meditating daily for 364 days a year, 2 hours each day, and has missed just one day of session somewhere. According to choice D, this person will receive less benefits than if the same person meditated daily (365 days), now mind you the duration is not constrained to be constant as such per choice D, so if he meditates 365 days a year, 10 minutes each day - he would receive greater benefits. (We don't have any information to make such kind of inference because we are not told exactly how much more important frequency of meditation is than the duration)

MartyMurray KarishmaB
What can be the exact reasoning to eliminate option C ?

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(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.


Option C can be eliminated because it is nowhere mentioned that ten minutes of meditation per day and less frequent meditation sessions of an hour or longer have about same gain in life expectancy. ­

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.

(D) Meditating less frequently than once per day will lead to less positive benefits than meditating daily.

People saying option D is too extreme as regular doesnt mean daily, it is clearly written in the argument that daily mediation sessions are important even if they are of 10 mins.

(E) Daily meditation sessions of an hour or longer can increase one's life expectancy.

Conclusion clearly states that even if the sessions are of as short as 10 mins, if they are done daily, the benefits (reduced stress, increased concentration, and a longer life) can be achieved