Bunuel wrote:
Recent surveys show that many people who have left medical school before graduating suffer from depression. Clearly, depression is likely to cause withdrawal from medical school.
Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the conclusion above?
A. Many medical schools provide psychological counseling for their students.
B. About half of those who leave medical school report feeling depressed after they make the decision to leave.
C. Depression is very common among management consultants who have a similarly difficult work schedule to those of many young doctors.
D. Medical students who have sought depression counseling due to family problems leave at a higher rate than the national average.
E. Career change has been shown to be a strong contributing factor in the onset of depression.
KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:
D
Conclusion: Depression causes withdrawal from medical school.
Evidence: Many students who have left medical school are depressed. This assumes that people who begin suffering from depression while in medical school are more likely to leave school than those who don't. The choice that validates this assumption will be the one that most strengthens the argument.
(A) is irrelevant; the counseling provided may or may not be for depression. (B) and (E) support a link between depression and leaving, but in both cases, the depression comes after the decision to leave. That's the opposite of what the argument says. (C) is out of scope since we're discussing medical students, not young doctors or consultants. (D) suggests that when some outside event has brought on depression, leaving becomes more likely in the period subsequent to the depression. This confirms that students who are depressed while in school are more likely to drop out.