The incidence of suicide in the country of Travonia has increased

Question

The incidence of suicide in the country of Travonia has increased dramatically in recent years, as evidenced by the fact that since the introduction of several nonprescription brands of sleeping pills, the number of deaths from overdoses alone has nearly doubled. However, certain types of suicides have not increased in number during this period. It is true that elderly suicides have seen a greater than 70 percent increase, but teen suicides now account for only 30 percent of all suicides in the country. This is a significant decrease over 1985, when teen cases represented 65 percent of all country-wide suicides.

The assertion that suicides are increasing in Travonia is most justified if which of the following is assumed?

(A) The elderly suffered the greatest number of overdoses from the nonprescription sleeping pills.

(B) Overdosing on sleeping pills was not the most pervasive method of suicide in Travonia ten years ago.

(C) The number of deaths from natural causes in Travonia has decreased in recent years.

(D) The majority of deaths resulting from overdosing on non-prescription sleeping pills were not accidental.

(E) Travonia's suicide rate is higher than the world-wide average suicide rate.

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nav1995 · Answer

Bunuel : Can you pls share the reasoning? Why (a) isn't correct?

harshitasinghal · Answer

Hi,

Can you please explain why other options are incorrect and why is D correct?

cumnecessitatibus · Answer

so a death would be called suicide only when the overdose has been done knowingly and not by accident. So the assertion "suicides are increasing" would be justified only when the deaths are actually suicide and overdose in not accidental. Therefore D is correct.

miag · Answer

Hi,

If you prethink at the start and follow author's reasoning to conclusion, you will see there is a gap. Deaths from overdoses can be intentional (which would count as a suicide) or accidental (which wouldn't count towards suicide). Keeping this in mind, lets go through the options one by one:

A) Even if the elderly suffered the greatest number of overdoses from the sleeping pills, do we know if these are suicide attempts or not? No, hence we cannot ascertain impact of this option on the conclusion and we can rule it out
B) This is totally irrelevant - we arent concerned with which was the most prevalent method of suicide. Even if overdose isn't the top one, this still doesn't help us address whether the actual overdose cases mentioned were with the intent of suicide or not.
C) Again, this is not relevant. We are concerned with overdose cases, and whether they were a means of suicide. The number of natural deaths has no bearing on whether overdose deaths were suicides or accidents.
D) This is directly in line with prethinking above and is hence correct. Only if we know that majority of overdosing cases were not accidental can we say for sure that these were intentional suicide attempts.
E) Irrelevant, higher or lower - doesnt impact the conclusion cause we cant ascertain the impact.

Hope this helps clarify!

quopariatur · Answer

for the argument- 1. suicide and 2. sleeping pills, u would want consumption of those to be intentional.

Bunuel · Answer

KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

Now for part 2 of "Suicide in Travonia." Re-evaluating the argument, we can see that the author presents one piece of evidence in support of her assertion: Deaths resulting from sleeping pill overdoses have almost doubled since new nonprescription sleeping pills have been released. In order to use these overdoses to support the assertion that suicides have increased dramatically, the author must assume that the overdoses were indeed deliberate and hence qualify as suicides. (D) clearly expresses this assumption.

(A) brings up the same problem that we saw in the previous question's answer choices: the author makes no links between the people overdosing on the sleeping pills and the teens and elderly folk discussed later in the stimulus. The author needn't assume such a connection in order to assert that suicides have increased dramatically.

An 800 test taker understands the relationship between groups represented in the stimulus, and specifically knows which connections are necessary, and not necessary, between them.

(B) Knowing what was the most pervasive suicide method ten years ago doesn't have any real bearing on the claim in the first sentence of the passage. Maybe the method was overdosing on sleeping pills, maybe not. Either way, this doesn't help justify the assertion that recent suicides are up.

(C) is far outside the scope. Deaths from natural causes have no necessary relation to this argument about suicide.

(E)'s relative comparison of Travonia's suicide rate to the world's is not relevant to the assertion in question. The author only asserts that suicides in Travonia have increased; there is no mention of their relative increase or of the suicide rate in other countries.

The incidence of suicide in the country of Travonia has increased

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The incidence of suicide in the country of Travonia has increased

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