I know that I'm late to the party and some magnificently smart people have already weighed in... but just in case it helps, here's an extra two cents:
zoezhuyan wrote:
Hi
mikemcgarry,
GMATNinjaTwo,
GMATNinja,
MagooshExpert Carolyn,
sayantanc2k,
This is a question that i stratch my head, genuinely need your help
#1 conclusion
IMO, the conclusion is "
simply talking to other people suffices "
rather than "Evidence to this effect comes from a study showing that the more social contact people report, the better their mental skills."
Right?
You got it!
zoezhuyan wrote:
#2
I don't compleltely understand the question "Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the force of the evidence cited?"
Should i weaken the evidence or conclusion ?
Does "the force of the evidence cited" mean conclusion? i know premise/evidence supports conclusion, but i am not sure whether the force of the evidence cited means conclusion.
there are two evidence in the prompt, If the stem ask to weaken evidence, then i just need weaken one of the premises, no matter which one,
in other words, i need to weaken either premise 1 (engage intellectual activities can mantain mental sharpness) or premise 2 (more social activities, higher mental skills), right?
Yes, we have two "premises", but the passage specifically refers to one piece of "evidence": ""Evidence to this effect comes from a study showing that the more social contact people report, the better their mental skills."
We want to specifically weaken the force of that piece of evidence. The author uses that evidence to arrive at the conclusion, so if we weaken the force of that evidence, then we will ultimately weaken the conclusion too.
In other words, the author jumps from that evidence to the conclusion. We want something that gets in the way of that logical jump.
zoezhuyan wrote:
#3 causal relationship
Seems there are lots of people view this question as a causal relationship.
the last sentence "Evidence to this effect comes from a study showing that the more social contact people report, the better their mental skills."
Does it imply causal relationship? but it just imply the coreleration between more social activities and higher skills?
Now you are barking up the right tree! The evidence is that people who report more social contact have better mental skills. According to the author, this is
evidence that social contact causes better mental skills. Sure, the evidence doesn't
prove this, but it at least suggests that such a causal relationship is possible.
But is that necessarily the case? If one of the answer choices suggests otherwise, then we've found our answer.
zoezhuyan wrote:
#4 answer choice B Many medical conditions and treatments that adversely affect a person's mental sharpness also tend to increase that person's social isolation
what does B indicate? a third event causes two events, or a certain event cause a event mentioned in premise.
a third event causes two events -- a mendical condition and treatments cause both poor mental sharpness and social isolation.
or
a certain event cause a event mentioned in premise -- a certain medical condition and treatment that affact mential sharpness causes social isolation.
thanks in advance
have a nice day
>_~
Choice (B) refers to medical conditions and treatments that cause worse mental skills. Many of those conditions/treatments ALSO cause social isolation. So social isolation is not
causing worse mental skills. Instead, the conditions/treatments are causing both worse mental skills AND social isolation (or, as you put it, "a third event causes two events").
This explains why we would see a correlation between social contact and mental skills (i.e. explains the evidence). However, it strongly suggests that social contact levels are not actually CAUSING better/worse mental skills. The conditions/treatments are the cause.
So we have not changed the evidence, but we have come up with an alternate explanation that weakens the force of that evidence. Thus, (B) is the right answer.
I hope that helps!
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