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21 Aug 2020, 11:16
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A
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!
Difficulty:
65%
(hard)
Question Stats:
62% (02:32) correct
38%
(02:37)
wrong
based on 389
sessions
History
Date
Time
Result
Not Attempted Yet
From the fact that people who studied music as children frequently are quite proficient at mathematics, it cannot be concluded that the skills required for mathematics are acquired by studying music: it is equally likely that proficiency in mathematics and studying music are both the result of growing up in a family that encourages its children to excel at all intellectual and artistic endeavors.
The pattern of reasoning in which one of the following arguments is most parallel to that in the argument above?
(A) Although children who fail to pay attention tend to perform poorly in school, it should not necessarily be thought that their poor performance is caused by their failure to pay attention, for it is always possible that their failure to pay attention is due to undiagnosed hearing problems that can also lead to poor performance in school.
(B) People who attend a university in a foreign country are usually among the top students from their native country. It would therefore be wrong to conclude from the fact that many foreign students perform better academically than others in this country that secondary schools in other countries are superior to those in this country; it may be that evaluation standards are different.
(C) People whose diet includes relatively large quantities of certain fruits and vegetables have a slightly lower than average incidence of heart disease. But it would be premature to conclude that consuming these fruits and vegetables prevents heart disease, for this correlation may be merely coincidental.
(D) Those who apply to medical school are required to study biology and chemistry. It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that those who have mastered chemistry and biology will succeed as physicians, for the practical application of knowledge is different from its acquisition.
(E) Those who engage in vigorous exercise tend to be very healthy. But it would be silly to conclude that vigorous exercise is healthful simply because people who are healthy exercise vigorously, since it is possible that exercise that is less vigorous also has beneficial results.
The pattern of reasoning in which one of the following arguments is most parallel to that in the argument above?
(A) Although children who fail to pay attention tend to perform poorly in school, it should not necessarily be thought that their poor performance is caused by their failure to pay attention, for it is always possible that their failure to pay attention is due to undiagnosed hearing problems that can also lead to poor performance in school.
(B) People who attend a university in a foreign country are usually among the top students from their native country. It would therefore be wrong to conclude from the fact that many foreign students perform better academically than others in this country that secondary schools in other countries are superior to those in this country; it may be that evaluation standards are different.
(C) People whose diet includes relatively large quantities of certain fruits and vegetables have a slightly lower than average incidence of heart disease. But it would be premature to conclude that consuming these fruits and vegetables prevents heart disease, for this correlation may be merely coincidental.
(D) Those who apply to medical school are required to study biology and chemistry. It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that those who have mastered chemistry and biology will succeed as physicians, for the practical application of knowledge is different from its acquisition.
(E) Those who engage in vigorous exercise tend to be very healthy. But it would be silly to conclude that vigorous exercise is healthful simply because people who are healthy exercise vigorously, since it is possible that exercise that is less vigorous also has beneficial results.
21 Aug 2020, 11:27
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righthand
Parallel Reasoning. The correct answer choice is (A)
This argument follows a classic cause-and-effect paradigm: just because two occurrences are correlated (studying music and being proficient in math), that does not mean that one necessarily causes the other. It is equally plausible that both share a common cause (such as growing up in a family that encourages intellectual and artistic pursuits).
Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. Just as in the stimulus, we are dealing with a correlation — this time between failing to pay attention and performing poorly in school. In both arguments we are warned against inferring a cause-and-effect relationship between the two, as it is always possible that a third factor (undiagnosed hearing problems in this case) can be the common cause for both.
Answer choice (B): There is no element of common cause that might be responsible for two occurrences that are correlated. This answer choice is incorrect.
Answer choice (C): While this answer choice is similar to the stimulus in that they both question the validity of a certain causal relationship (consuming vegetables does not necessarily prevent heart disease, just as studying music does not necessarily improve one's ability to do math), the author does not speculate as to what might be the common cause that explains the correlation. Because this element was crucial to the argument contained in the stimulus, this answer choice is incorrect.
Answer choice (D): This answer choice merely suggests that two required conditions for becoming a physician (studying biology and chemistry) should not be thought of as sufficient for one's success a physician.
Answer choice (E): This answer choice may seem tempting at first, since vigorous exercise does not necessarily make you healthy, just as studying music does not necessarily make you better at math. However, the parallel ends here. We have no reason to suspect, for instance, that the correlation between vigorous exercise and health can be explained by a common cause. Instead, we are simply told that vigorous exercise may not be all that necessary in the end, since it is possible that exercise that is even less vigorous also has beneficial effects. This would be like saying that studying music does not necessarily make you better at math, because merely listening to music may sometimes be enough. This answer choice is therefore incorrect.
Hit Kudos, if that helped
General Discussion
22 Jul 2024, 11:22
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