Out of those suffering from manic depression - Evaluate Argument

Question

Out of those suffering from manic depression, patients who live at home have more bouts of depression than do patients at mental health care facilities. As a part of an experiment, some of the patients in the mental health care facility were relocated to home environments, from which stress-causing factors had been eliminated. It was found that the patients at home environments had more depression bouts than the patients at the mental health care facilities. Therefore, the opinion that the stress-free environment of mental health facilities is the sole reason for their success is clearly wrong.

Which of the following, if true, helps assess the validity of the conclusion?

A. Most of the patients observed in the home environments were living with family members.

B. There were some patients in the health care facility who would have preferred to remain in their home environments.

C. The doctors observing patients in their home environments were more accredited than the doctors observing the other group.

D. The dosage of anti-depressive medicine was the same for patients in both the groups studied.

E. The time period of study was sufficient for patients to acclimatize to new surroundings that could otherwise have caused severe anxiety.

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Official Answer

E

Rashie1 · Answer

A. Most of the patients observed in the home environments were living with family members.
This is just a description of the home setup — it doesn’t tell us whether family presence increases or decreases depression, so it doesn’t really help test the conclusion.

B. There were some patients in the health care facility who would have preferred to remain in their home environments.
Patient preference might affect happiness, but it doesn’t directly show whether the stress-free environment is or isn’t the main reason for facility success.

C. The doctors observing patients in their home environments were more accredited than the doctors observing the other group.
Doctor accreditation affects observation quality, but the conclusion is about causes of depression bouts, not about measurement accuracy.

D. The dosage of anti-depressive medicine was the same for patients in both the groups studied.
This controls for one possible difference i.e medicine dosage but doesn’t address the most likely confound here — the stress or adjustment period from relocation.
E. The time period of study was sufficient for patients to acclimatize to new surroundings that could otherwise have caused severe anxiety. 
 If the time period wasn’t enough, higher depression bouts in home patients could just be due to temporary relocation stress, not because the home environment is actually worse. Knowing they had time to acclimate removes that doubt, so the conclusion becomes stronger.
ANSWER - E

incid · Answer

D. The dosage of anti-depressive medicine was the same for patients in both the groups studied. 
If medication levels differed between groups, that could explain the difference in depression bouts, undermining the conclusion. Keeping dosage the same controls a major confounder and helps assess whether the stress-free environment alone accounts for outcomes.

Axwe7 · Answer

Still unsure of why the answer to this isn't option D. Negating it - i.e., dosage for anti-depressive medicines is different, would absolutely crush the conclusion since it introduces another variable into the equation from which there is not basis for a 'control'.

Mihirrr009 · Answer

If you try to evaluate D. We are not sure whose dosage is changed whether of patients at home or at medical centers. But with E you are sure that new surroundings are for patients shifted to home

ahddhah · Answer

Okay so think it like it like this if one patient who is sent to home environment was not on the same dosage amount then why do we need to have them same dosage amount so clearly it wont be able to evaluate.

ARoX · Answer

I think it should be D.

Also, technically anxiety and depression and two different things. When the passage clearly talks about depression, why are we linking it to anxiety.

Jujustrollss · Answer

would it be possible to get an expert to weigh in on this? Option D seems like the most correct answer

Tanabhumi · Answer

In my opinion, choice D is possible but not the best one. It mentions the dosage of the med, but what is the main focus of the argument? The focus is on the change of places, or environment, whether those changes affect the patient's mental state or not.

That’s where choice E comes in. It addresses whether the test period was sufficient to determine if the conclusion holds true or not. If the time was not enough to properly test the main idea, then the argument cannot fully confirm its conclusion.

So, while D is reasonable, it is not the best choice.

shankk · Answer

How does E work? If it's their home environment how is it new surroundings. If anything, the facilities would be new surroundings, no?

egmat · Answer

Patients were living in mental health facilities. Then they were relocated back to home environments (with stress factors removed).
Even though it's their own home, they're returning to it after living in a facility. That's still a transition—a change in their living situation.

Think about it: if you lived in a dorm for a year and then moved back home, wouldn't there be an adjustment period? Even though it's your home, you've adapted to facility life—the routines, the structure, the daily environment. Going back home means readjusting.  "New surroundings" doesn't mean unfamiliar—it means a changed living situation you need to adapt to.

What if patients are having more depression just because they recently transitioned back home? That depression might have nothing to do with home vs. facility—it might just be adjustment anxiety from the change itself. E addresses this by telling us whether enough time passed for adjustment. If patients had time to settle back in, then the depression is about the home environment itself, not just the stress of transitioning. If not enough time passed, we're just measuring transition anxiety, not the actual comparison.

shankk · Answer

You're right, I somehow missed the fact that the patients were being relocated from the institutes to their homes and assumed that it was a study of patients being treated at home without ever having gone to an institution vs people who were being treated at an institution.

GulfTube · Answer

to clarify why E is better option than D:

look at it as stress-free environment is X of study and number of depression bouts is Y of study.

dosage of anti-depressants can be co-founding variable if not controlled in the study.

E) if patients that were moved to home were given ample time to acclimatize time to adjust hence ruling out adjustment anxiety, then more depression bouts at home would signify that there is something else besides stress-free environment which reduces depression bouts. Therefore there must be some other factor alongside stress-free environment which leads to less bouts at facilities. This strengthens the conclusion. if those patients were not given ample time to adjust however, then the mere adjustment anxiety could be the reason behind more bouts at home, leading us to believe ( though not proving which is sufficient in strengthen/weaken ) that had they been given ample time to adjust then there wouldn't be these higher depressive bouts at home. This supports the argument that stress-free environment is indeed the sole reason for success of facilities, thereby weakening the passage conclusion.

D) mismatch of dosage would be a cofounding variable if not controlled. and similar argument can be build like E by replacing  time sufficiency to adjust with mismatch of dosage , however note that passage never states if these patients are on medications. This option inherently assumes that patients are on medications and builds from there on. Such assumptions beyond what is stated in passage is invalid making this choice incorrect.

GulfTube · Answer

to clarify why E is better option than D:

look at it as stress-free environment is X of study and number of depression bouts is Y of study.

dosage of anti-depressants can be co-founding variable if not controlled in the study.

E) if patients that were moved to home were given ample time to acclimatize time to adjust hence ruling out adjustment anxiety, then more depression bouts at home would signify that there is something else besides stress-free environment which reduces depression bouts. Therefore there must be some other factor alongside stress-free environment which leads to less bouts at facilities. This strengthens the conclusion. if those patients were not given ample time to adjust however, then the mere adjustment anxiety could be the reason behind more bouts at home, leading us to believe ( though not proving which is sufficient in strengthen/weaken ) that had they been given ample time to adjust then there wouldn't be these higher depressive bouts at home. This supports the argument that stress-free environment is indeed the sole reason for success of facilities, thereby weakening the passage conclusion.

D) mismatch of dosage would be a cofounding variable if not controlled. and similar argument can be build like E by replacing  time sufficiency to adjust with mismatch of dosage , however note that passage never states if these patients are on medications. This option inherently assumes that patients are on medications and builds from there on. Such assumptions beyond what is stated in passage is invalid making this choice incorrect.

FerociousStorm · Answer

I feel like D should be the answer. Option E talks about anxiety, not Depression. In the passage, nowhere has anxiety been even mentioned. Also dosage change Directly correlates to new symptoms or lack of existing ones

guddo · Answer

Out of those suffering from manic depression, patients who live at home have more bouts of depression than do patients at mental health care facilities. As a part of an experiment, some of the patients in the mental health care facility were relocated to home environments, from which stress-causing factors had been eliminated. It was found that the patients at home environments had more depression bouts than the patients at the mental health care facilities. Therefore, the opinion that the stress-free environment of mental health facilities is the sole reason for their success is clearly wrong. 
 
Which of the following, if true, helps assess the validity of the conclusion?

The argument says that even when stress-causing factors were removed from home environments, patients there still had more depression bouts than patients in facilities.  The key issue  is whether the move to a new home environment itself created stress. If patients had not adjusted to the new surroundings, their extra depression bouts may have been caused by  relocation anxiety , not by some difference between home and facility care.

(A) Most of the patients observed in the home environments were living with family members.

This is not central. Living with family could matter, but the choice does not tell us whether that helped or hurt the patients.

(B) There were some patients in the health care facility who would have preferred to remain in their home environments.

This does not evaluate the experiment directly. Patient preference does not show why one group had more depression bouts.

(C) The doctors observing patients in their home environments were more accredited than the doctors observing the other group.

This is not very useful. Doctor accreditation does not directly explain the difference in depression bouts.

(D) The dosage of anti-depressive medicine was the same for patients in both the groups studied.

This is relevant, but less central than (E). Equal medication would help control one possible difference between the groups, but the argument is specifically about whether the supposedly stress-free home environment was really comparable to the facility environment.

(E) The time period of study was sufficient for patients to acclimatize to new surroundings that could otherwise have caused severe anxiety.

This is correct.  If patients had enough time to adjust, then their extra depression bouts are less likely to be due merely to relocation stress. If they did not have enough time, the conclusion becomes much weaker.

Answer: (E)

egmat · Answer

Hi FerociousStorm,

You've actually spotted the exact word that makes E feel wrong, so let's start right there, because that word is doing something you'd want it to do.

Why "anxiety" in E is not off-topic.  E isn't switching the subject to anxiety. It's naming the  cause  that might be faking the depression result. Remember the setup: these patients were living in the facility and were then  relocated  back home. E says the new surroundings "could otherwise have caused severe anxiety" - and that transition anxiety is a plausible reason the home patients showed  more depression bouts . So the cause (adjustment anxiety) and the measured outcome (depression bouts) are different words on purpose - one is triggering the other.

That's why E lets you  assess the conclusion :

- If the study period  was  long enough to acclimatize - the extra depression really reflects the home environment - the conclusion holds.
- If it  wasn't  long enough - the extra depression is just transition stress, not the home environment - the conclusion falls apart.

An "assess the validity" answer must swing the conclusion both ways like this. E does exactly that.

Why D can't do that.  Here's the quiet problem: the passage never says these patients are on anti-depressive medicine at all. D only matters  if  you first assume medication is part of the experiment - an outside detail the stimulus never gives you. You're right that dosage  would  affect symptoms in real life, but that's exactly the trap: you're importing a fact the argument didn't state. D also just reports a control that's already "the same" for both groups, so it doesn't test the core question - whether the  environment  caused the difference.

A quick way to feel the E logic:  a plant moved into new soil starts wilting. Is the soil bad, or is it just replant shock? Give it enough time - if it  still  wilts, blame the soil; if it wasn't given time, you learned nothing. Swap "wilting" for depression bouts and "replant shock" for transition anxiety, and that's precisely what E is checking.

Answer: E

officiisnobis · Answer

Notes - home more depression than medical center 
relocate :- stress-causing factors removed home environment > mental health care facilities 
Conclusion - Therefore, the opinion that the stress-free environment of mental health facilities is the sole reason for their success is clearly wrong.

A. Most of the patients observed in the home environments were living with family members.
- Only talks about home environment IGNORE 
B. There were some patients in the health care facility who would have preferred to remain in their home environments. 
- Talks only about some patient preferences - IRRELEVANT
C. The doctors observing patients in their home environments were more accredited than the doctors observing the other group. 
- doesn't change the observation made - IRRELEVANT
D. The dosage of anti-depressive medicine was the same for patients in both the groups studied. 
- hmm can keep for now
E. The time period of study was sufficient for patients to acclimatize to new surroundings that could otherwise have caused severe anxiety. 
- Yes Maybe the move itself caused anxiety 
E correct answer. Ignore D.

Out of those suffering from manic depression - Evaluate Argument

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Out of those suffering from manic depression - Evaluate Argument

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615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

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