Chocolate lovers often consume excessive amounts of chocolate when the

Question

Chocolate lovers often consume excessive amounts of chocolate when they are under stress. Since this overconsumption is often followed by an acne episode, it follows that eating chocolate is one cause of acne attacks in those individuals susceptible to acne.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above?

A. Chocolate lovers often consume other kinds of sweets in preference to chocolate.
B. The more excessive the overconsumption of chocolate, the more serious any subsequent acne episode tends to be.
C. Overconsumption of rich sweets other than chocolate has been found to be correlated with acne episodes.
D. Hormonal changes associated with stress often lead to acne episodes.
E. Many people who eat chocolate do not experience acne.

CR16813

SiffyB · Accepted Answer

Stress -> overconsumption of chocolates -> acne
Thus, chocolate consumption -> acne
We have to weaken this causal relationship.

What if it was not the chocolates that led to acne but stress itself?? 
This means chcolate has no role to play in acne - it was not one of the causes of acne.

(A) So what? Chocolates can still cause acne.
(B) This strengthens the argument that chocolate leads to acne.
(C) OFS. Again, so what? Chocolates can still lead to acne.
 (D) This is correct according to our prethinking. It is the stress that leads to acne, not chocolate.
 (E) Maybe those people were not susceptible to acne!

IMO, (D)

unraveled · Answer

Chocolate lovers often consume excessive amounts of chocolate when they are under stress. Since this overconsumption is often followed by an acne episode, it follows that eating chocolate is one cause of acne attacks in those individuals susceptible to acne.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above?

Premise: Chocolate lovers OFTEN consume EXCESSIVE amount of chocolate and after overeating acne episode occurs OFTEN. 
Conclusion: Eating chocolate is one cause of acne attacks.

NOTE: These individuals are SUSCEPTIBLE to acne. Susceptible is the keyword here.

A. Chocolate lovers often consume other kinds of sweets in preference to chocolate. - WRONG. Chocolate still remains one cause of acne attacks if it is consumed with other kinds of sweets.
B. The more excessive the overconsumption of chocolate, the more serious any subsequent acne episode tends to be. - WRONG. Its a strengthener. Acne episodes are directly proportional to more chocolate eating.
C. Overconsumption of rich sweets other than chocolate has been found to be correlated with acne episodes. - CORRECT. The key here to note is 'other then'. It suggests that even if chocolate is not eaten, overconsumption of other rich sweets lead to acne episodes. Chocolate , now, does not remain one cause.
D. Hormonal changes associated with stress often lead to acne episodes. - WRONG. Hormonal and susceptible are somewhat doing same thing. The option does nothing to conclusion. 
E. Many people who eat chocolate do not experience acne. - WRONG. May be true but its not related to argument . Irrelevant .

IMO Answer C.

Kritisood · Answer

IMO, D as it gives an alternate explanation hence weakening the given reasoning.

Batman117 · Answer

D.
Person in stress will consume chocolate and will have acne.
So acne is not due to overconsumption of chocolate bit due to hormones released due to stress.

Posted from my mobile device

NiftyNiffler · Answer

Chocolate lovers often consume excessive amounts of chocolate when they are under stress. Since this overconsumption is often followed by an acne episode, it follows that eating chocolate is one cause of acne attacks in those individuals susceptible to acne.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above?

A. Chocolate lovers often consume other kinds of sweets in preference to chocolate.  -- This answer option doesn't link reason to acne 
B. The more excessive the overconsumption of chocolate, the more serious any subsequent acne episode tends to be.  -- Talks of the same premise but for extreme cases 
C. Overconsumption of rich sweets other than chocolate has been found to be correlated with acne episodes.  -- This has nothing to do with chocolates 
D. Hormonal changes associated with stress often lead to acne episodes.  -- CORRECT, this gives an alternative causality for acne formation that just coincides with chocolate eating but has a different inducer (hormonal changes) 
E. Many people who eat chocolate do not experience acne.  -- Special cases

So, answer should be  D

the27s · Answer

D. Typical of Cause and Effect question. More chocolate = more acne.

Option A is out of scope of the argument. Option B is a strengthener.
Option C, D give alternate causes. With option C, it isn't clear if the individuals ate sweet instead of chocolate at some point from the premise.

Option E simply negates the findings by using quantitative indicator. However, the premise doesn't have any quantitative indicator so this choice though weakens adda ambiguity.

Option D indicates the alternate cause - hormone changes due to stress which is mentioned in the premise and hence is the best weakener.

Posted from my mobile device

100mitra · Answer

What information  would undermine the argument for the conclusion 
 that eating chocolate sometimes causes acne attacks ?

Assumption:  
- Eating too much chocolate under stress is followed by an acne attack, 
- that chocolate consumption rather than the stress caused the acne attack. 
- when eating too much chocolate under stress is followed by an acne attack, 
- the chocolate consumption caused the acne attack.

Any evidence suggesting that  
stress or some other factor present in the same cases often causes acne 
would cast doubt on the assumption that the chocolate consumption is the cause, 
and  thus would weaken the argument. 
 
A This information neither strengthens nor weakens the argument. 
The argument focuses on a possible effect of chocolate consumption. 
Even if consuming other sweets in preference to chocolate is also sometimes followed by acne attacks, 
this would not be significant evidence against the argument that chocolate consumption is one cause of acne attacks.
 Wrong

B This would strengthen the argument by providing further evidence of a correlation 
between excessive chocolate consumption and subsequent acne attacks.
 Wrong

C This suggests that sugar, fat, or both, may be the main factors causing acne episodes 
after overconsumption of chocolate. 
But since most chocolate contains a lot of sugar and fat, 
this observation is entirely compatible with the hypothesis 
that chocolate overconsumption itself causes acne attacks.
 Wrong

D  Correct.  
This provides evidence for the alternative hypothesis that 
- when eating too much chocolate under stress is followed by an acne attack, 
- the stress rather than the chocolate consumption is what causes the attack.

E The argument only concludes that 
- eating excessive amounts of chocolate can cause acne attacks in individuals susceptible to acne. 
It does not depend on a hypothesis that almost everyone who eats chocolate is susceptible to acne.
 Wrong  
The correct answer is D.

Arvind123 · Answer

Can someone explain how (D) breaks the conclusion that overconsumption of chocolate being one of the cause for acne. I am more inclined towards (C) as it breaks the conclusion by saying that overconsumption of sweets "other than" chocolate causes acne.
 GMATNinja  any thoughts?

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

Arvind123 
If the author concludes that chocolate is  one  cause of acne, we can't weaken that by simply pointing out other causes. That would be like saying that bacteria can't cause illness because viruses do. One doesn't stop the other from being true. For that reason, C does nothing at all to weaken the argument. Any number of things may cause acne, but that doesn't stop chocolate from doing so, nor does it explain why we'd see more acne after people eat chocolate.

What we need to do is undermine the logical basis for the conclusion. This is a classic case of correlation vs. causation. The author uses the  correlation  between chocolate consumption and subsequent acne outbreaks to conclude that chocolate is the  cause  of the outbreaks. To weaken the argument, we need some alternative way to interpret the evidence. If chocolate doesn't cause acne, why the outbreaks afterward? That's where D comes in. Since we've been told that chocolate consumption is also correlated with stress, perhaps it's the stress causing the acne, not the chocolate.

Also, notice that the answer to a weaken does not need to "break" the conclusion. The argument may still be correct despite the weaken. We only talk about "breaking" arguments when we negate a necessary assumption, and not all correct weaken answers operate that way.

rmahe11 · Answer

ChiranjeevSingh  if an alternate reason has to be a weakener in such case why is D more suitable than C ? C also says rich sweets (and yes sweets are not equal to chocolate) which have correlation with acne . Does it also mean that it may be correlated but "may not be the cause" ? why are we rejecting the option

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

rmahe11

An alternative cause isn't a weakener at all unless the argument is saying that there is only one cause. For instance, what if I said "I got hit in the head with a baseball, and now I have a headache. So getting hit in the head with a baseball can cause a headache." You couldn't weaken it by saying "Getting hit in the head with a brick can also cause a headache." I'm sure it can, but who cares? The argument is about whether this is ONE POSSIBLE cause, so introducing others has no effect on the argument at all. However, if we can show that when I got hit in the head, something ELSE happened that may have caused the headache instead, then maybe getting hit with the baseball didn't cause the headache at all.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Chocolate lovers often consume excessive amounts of chocolate when the

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