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Bunuel
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People who have a college degree tend to live longer than those who do 24 Oct 2023, 01:30
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Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!

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25% (medium)

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71% (01:19) correct 29% (01:27) wrong based on 205 sessions

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People who have a college degree tend to live longer than those who do not have a college degree. This is true for both men and women, and it is true across many different ethnicities and in many different geographical regions. This phenomenon is easily explained because it has been proven that people who have attended college have lifestyles and habits that are well known to increase lifespan: they eat balanced meals, they exercise often, they consider themselves happy, and they tend to have strong relationships. Therefore, if you want to have a longer lifespan, you should get your college degree.

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

(A) Some people who attend college do not get their college degree.
(B) People with those four habits and lifestyles are more likely to go to college than those without them.
(C) People with college degrees tend to have more heart attacks than those without one.
(D) Women tend to live much longer than men do.
(E) People from certain geographical regions and certain ethnicities tend to have longer lifespans.


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B
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People who have a college degree tend to live longer than those who do 24 Oct 2023, 04:26
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IMO-B reverse Causal relationship.

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People who have a college degree tend to live longer than those who do 24 Oct 2023, 04:58
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Bunuel
People who have a college degree tend to live longer than those who do not have a college degree. This is true for both men and women, and it is true across many different ethnicities and in many different geographical regions. This phenomenon is easily explained because it has been proven that people who have attended college have lifestyles and habits that are well known to increase lifespan: they eat balanced meals, they exercise often, they consider themselves happy, and they tend to have strong relationships. Therefore, if you want to have a longer lifespan, you should get your college degree.

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

(A) Some people who attend college do not get their college degree.
(B) People with those four habits and lifestyles are more likely to go to college than those without them.
(C) People with college degrees tend to have more heart attacks than those without one.
(D) Women tend to live much longer than men do.
(E) People from certain geographical regions and certain ethnicities tend to have longer lifespans.



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OA is B

Here the conclusion is if you want to have a longer lifespan, you should get your college degree. let us weaken this conclusion, what if this habits are already within the people before they join the college. So in that case our conclusion will break apart.

Option Elimination :
(A) Some people who attend college do not get their college degree.
We are talking about lifespan, degree is irrelevant, so OOS.
(B) People with those four habits and lifestyles are more likely to go to college than those without them.
Exactly we discussed previously.
(C) People with college degrees tend to have more heart attacks than those without one.
Even if there is heart attack, are they dying of that, it just discussed with heart attack, in my opinion it should not be the answer.
(D) Women tend to live much longer than men do.
We are talking about college degree, no discussion about this, OOS.
(E) People from certain geographical regions and certain ethnicities tend to have longer lifespans.
Even they do, no talk about college degree, so OOS.
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People who have a college degree tend to live longer than those who do 05 Nov 2023, 11:30
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Bunuel
People who have a college degree tend to live longer than those who do not have a college degree. This is true for both men and women, and it is true across many different ethnicities and in many different geographical regions. This phenomenon is easily explained because it has been proven that people who have attended college have lifestyles and habits that are well known to increase lifespan: they eat balanced meals, they exercise often, they consider themselves happy, and they tend to have strong relationships. Therefore, if you want to have a longer lifespan, you should get your college degree.

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

(A) Some people who attend college do not get their college degree.
(B) People with those four habits and lifestyles are more likely to go to college than those without them.
(C) People with college degrees tend to have more heart attacks than those without one.
(D) Women tend to live much longer than men do.
(E) People from certain geographical regions and certain ethnicities tend to have longer lifespans.


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VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:




With any "best completes the passage" problem, your job is first to read the portion immediately prior to the underline to determine what role the answer choice must play. Here that portion is "this explanation can only be true if..." which sets this up as an assumption question. After all, with assumption questions the answer is a necessary premise upon which the conclusion directly depends.

Here that correct assumption that is very easy to overlook. Essentially, the argument states that the reason people with college degrees live longer than people without college degrees is that people with college degrees have these habits: they eat balanced meals, they exercise often, they consider themselves happy, and they have strong relationships. However, how do you know that people without college degrees do not have all the same habits?!? It DOES NOT say they eat MORE balanced meals, exercise MORE, consider themselves HAPPIER than people without college degrees. However, it is very easy to assume that, and many people don’t notice the lack of comparative language. Given this assumption, answer choice (D) is correct as it eliminates this big problem in the argument.

(A) is relatively easy to eliminate as the ethnicities and geographical variation are not important elements in this argument. (B) is tricky because it does the opposite – it WEAKENS the argument. If it said there are “NOT other reasons” then it would be correct. (C) is very tricky because many people notice the word play in the argument – the conclusion talks about people with college degrees but the evidence talks about people who have attended college. However this argument does not rely on the assumption that ALL people who attend finish. If a few people who attended did not finish, it has no impact on this argument at all. (E), like (B), does the opposite and actually weakens the argument. (E) would be correct if it said “There are NOT other factors…” – answer is (D).
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