Women who are married sleep more soundly than women who have never

The answer is (E) only. Be careful of the exact words used in the argument.

Premises:
- Married women sleep more soundly.
- Sleeping less than six hours a night makes you 12% more likely to die prematurely than someone who sleeps up to eight hours.

Conclusion:
- Getting married increases a woman's life expectancy.

While concluding, the argument is assuming that unmarried women sleep less than 6 hrs while married women sleep upto 8 hrs. Sleeping upto 8 hrs increases your life expectancy compared with sleeping less than 6 hrs.
The argument also talks about "die prematurely" in premises but concludes about "higher life expectancy". Are they linked? we don't know.
Also, one premise tells us that married women "sleep soundly" while the other talks about "hours of sleep". Are they linked? we don't know.

We need to find strengtheners:

A. Populations with lower odds of premature death have higher life expectancies.
Links "die prematurely" used in the premises to higher life expectancy. Hence it strengthens the argument.

B. Getting married does not lead to oversleep.
Establishes that married women do not sleep for more than 8 hrs. The life expectancy if one sleeps for more than 8 hrs may not be higher. Since the premises mention clearly "upto 8 hrs", it brings the amount of sleep for married women in that range. Hence it increases the chances of higher life expectancy for them.

C. Marriage may introduce lifespan-shortening factors into a woman's life, but these factors tend to be collectively of less consequence than the benefit of sounder sleep.
The premises do not tell us how marriage affects other aspects. This tells us that sounder sleep trumps all other factors so it increase the likelihood that married women live longer.

D. Not sleeping soundly is the key reason women who cannot sleep at least eight hours a night fail to do so.
This links "sleeping soundly" to "sleeping upto 8 hrs a day". This strengthens the argument.

E. The psychology of women who marry is, on average, more conducive to sound sleep than that of women who have never married or lost a partner.
Why married women sleep soundly does not impact the argument. We have to figure out what happens because married women sleep soundly.

Answer (E)

OA provided.

Explanation from Gmatfree: Reading the question: Usually, in a strengthen question, we will look for the greatest weakness and then a strengthener that patches that weakness, because there is no greater way to strengthen an argument. But here we have a NOT question, so the correct answer is likely to be a weakener or be irrelevant. We'll use a basic filter: what answer choice weakens the idea that getting married makes a woman sleep longer and hence live longer?

Applying the filter: (A) patches a weak connection between dying prematurely and having a longer life expectancy. So (A) is a strengthener and hence is NOT the answer. Choice (B) also strengthens the argument, because it removes a problem and the prompt mentions specifically sleeping "up to 8 hours." So (B) is out. Choice (C) also removes a problem, that of an unintended consequence. So (C) is out. Choice (D) patches a weak connection between soundness of sleep and amount of sleep, so it's a strengthener and is out. Choice (E) may sound irrelevant initially, but it weakens the argument. It's saying that getting married isn't the cause of sleeping better; the cause, rather, is being the type of person, psychologically, who's likely to get married. It weakens the causal argument by establishing a different cause than the one given. The correct answer is (E).

I'm not buying the explanation.


B. Getting married does not lead to oversleep. Oversleeping is not mentioned AT ALL in the argument. Does it help? Does it hurt? We don't know. We only know UP TO 8 hours is helpful. So who cares if getting married DOES lead to oversleeping? This option is out of scope and does not help the argument.

B seems just as unhelpful to the argument as E. These "other" sources drive me nuts.

Reading the question: Usually, in a strengthen question, we will look for the greatest weakness and then a strengthener that patches that weakness, because there is no greater way to strengthen an argument. But here we have a NOT question, so the correct answer is likely to be a weakener or be irrelevant. We'll use a basic filter: what answer choice weakens the idea that getting married makes a woman sleep longer and hence live longer?

Applying the filter: (A) patches a weak connection between dying prematurely and having a longer life expectancy. So (A) is a strengthener and hence is NOT the answer. Choice (B) also strengthens the argument, because it removes a problem and the prompt mentions specifically sleeping "up to 8 hours." So (B) is out. Choice (C) also removes a problem, that of an unintended consequence. So (C) is out. Choice (D) patches a weak connection between soundness of sleep and amount of sleep, so it's a strengthener and is out. Choice (E) may sound irrelevant initially, but it weakens the argument. It's saying that getting married isn't the cause of sleeping better; the cause, rather, is being the type of person, psychologically, who's likely to get married. It weakens the causal argument by establishing a different cause than the one given. The correct answer is (E).

I think both b and e are not strengthener.

These are the facts we know:
Sound sleep good
Comparison bet <6 and <=8. <6 is worse than <=8. So anything between 6 to 8 is good. Below that is bad but we dont know anything about more than 8.

Also sound sleep doesnt mean if you spent morethan 8 its not sound. You dont knowthat.

So whether it lead to oversleep,whose defn a question mark in itself, or not,wont help to strengthen the argument at all.

E.address psychology of married women that lead to sound sleep. Well whatever the reason is, sound sleep is there. We are not interested in reason

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I am not convinced with the answer E .
In my view , whatever may be the reason behind sleeping , marriage is leading to sound sleeping . So it is strengthening the argument . Please help me where I am going wrong .. Thanks in advance ..!!

B: Getting married does not lead to oversleep. If you want it to necessarily mean something it can mean "a married woman will not sleep more than 8 hours". The married woman will sleep more than the woman who never married or lost a partner, this will however be less than 8 hours, this new information makes Choice B relevant to the question above and thus can not be considered irrelevant. It also goes to show that B actually does strengthen the argument as it allows us to keep the duration of sleep for a married woman <=8 and more than the other two categories of woman we are comparing with thus helping us understand that sleep duration within the 6-8 hour period will favour married over unmarried/partner lost.

I apologise for my verbose two cents. Hope this helps.


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E reverses the cause and effect relationship....sleep causes marriage rather than marriage causes sleep in the argument. Therefore it does nothing to strengthen the argument. In fact it offers an alternative explanation.


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E simply restates the fact mentioned in the premise.
It is not adding any value to the argument.

B, on the other hand is a good contender but I think somehow the linkage of sound sleep and hours of sleep is addressed by it.
So, it may be a strengthener.

--
Regards

I agree with the OA "E" to be a non-strengthener, but "B" is also a non-strengthener.

B. Getting married does not lead to oversleep.: This means a woman is sleeping more than 6 hour not because of marriage as marriage does not lead to oversleeping

E. The psychology of women who marry is, on average, more conducive to sound sleep than that of women who have never married or lost a partner: Psychology is a trait of personality, and hence it is already existing in the women who marry, so its not the marriage that induce the woman to sleep more.

The answer seems to be B but official answer from the person who posted the question is E. can you please step in and provide the correct answer?

Hi,

Psychology is the root cause that causes women to get married as well as to sleep sound.

Since it is a 3rd cause that causes both and affects the conditionally, it is correct.

Thanks

Are you trying to find a weakener or non-strengther?

Hi,

Question asks for a Non-strengthener.

But option-E is more of a weakener, wherein a 3rd cause causes the 2 events that are shown to have a conditional relationship.

Hence Option-E

Thanks

Hi all,

I'm new here. I went with Option D. Now, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I had narrowed it down to D & E.

Option D talks about women who sleep atleast 8 hours a day. Isn't that a completely different set of women since we are talking about women who sleep either less than 6 hours or women who sleep upton 8 hours. The argument never talks about women who sleeps atlteast 8 hours.

I agree with the above statement:

Option D talks about women who sleep atleast 8 hours a day. Isn't that a completely different set of women since we are talking about women who sleep either less than 6 hours or women who sleep upton 8 hours. The argument never talks about women who sleeps atlteast 8 hours. How is this a strengthener?

If anything I considered it a weakener, since NOT-ing the two statements (to be easier to understand the sentence):
D. Not sleeping soundly is the key reason women who cannot sleep at least eight hours a night fail to do so.
-> becomes
Sleeping soundly...key reason...women can sleep at least 8 hours a day

That means women can sleep more than 8 hours a day. BUT this is not the original argument, which is capped at 8 hours. D should therefore weaken, correct?

The conclusion talks about getting married & option E talks about women who marry. I believe that's what makes E indicate a different cause to a sound sleep. Option E gives a different reason compared to the conclusion.

I also marked D but then understood the importance of words "getting married" in conclusion & "who are marry" in option E. The game is all about the words & their INTENDED MEANING.

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