People with high blood pressure are generally more nervous and anxious

Question

People with high blood pressure are generally more nervous and anxious than people who do not have high blood pressure. This fact show that this particular combination of personality traits—the so-called hypertensive personality—is likely to cause a person with these traits to develop high blood pressure.

The reasoning in the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument

A. fails to define the term “hypertensive personality”

B. presupposes that people have permanent personality traits

C. simply restates the claim that there is a “hypertensive personality” without providing evidence to support that claim.

D. takes a correlation between personality traits and high blood pressure as proof that the traits cause high blood pressure.

E. focuses on nervousness and anxiety only, ignoring other personality traits that people with high blood pressure might have

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Matthyrou · Answer

hi, let's resume the argumentation's process, 
hbp people(hight blood pressure), generally are nervous and axious, more than other people. This proove that if people are like this it causes hbp
where is the flawing?
a) personality traits are define, thus wrong
b)out of the arg, wrong 
c)there is support about this personality (that when you are hbp, you're more likely to be nervous and anxious compare to the other)
d)because correlation btw hbp and hypertensive people, these traits are causing hbp), right
e)yes we're ignoring thaugh is it the point of the qu., no, wrong

prantorboni · Answer

People with high blood pressure are generally more nervous and anxious than people who do not have high blood pressure. This fact show that this particular combination of personality traits—the so-called hypertensive personality—is likely to cause a person with these traits to develop high blood pressure.

Presumption: People with high blood pressure are generally more nervous and anxious than people who do not have high blood pressure. From this fact conclusion has been drawn that nervousness and anxiety likely to cause a person high blood pressure.

The reasoning in the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument

Answer: E. focuses on nervousness and anxiety only, ignoring other personality traits that people with high blood pressure might have

Bunuel · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

Premise:  People with high blood pressure are generally more nervous and anxious than people who do not have high blood pressure.  Premise:  This particular combination of personality traits is called the hypertensive personality.  Conclusion:  The hypertensive personality is likely to cause a person to develop high blood pressure. The premises indicate that certain individuals have both high blood pressure and the hypertensive personality. From this information we cannot draw any conclusions, but the author makes the classic GMAT error of concluding that one of the conditions causes the other. Your job is to find the answer that describes this error of reasoning. From the “Situations That Can Lead to Errors of Causality” discussion, the scenario in this stimulus falls under item 2—“Two (or more) events occur at the same time.” As described in that section, “While one event could have caused the other, the two events could be the result of a third event, or the two events could simply be correlated but one does not cause the other.” Thus, you should search either for an answer that states that the author forgot that a third event could have caused the two events or that the author mistook correlation for causation. Answer choice (D) describes the latter.

Answer choice (A): This is an Opposite answer because the stimulus defines the hypertensive personality as one with the traits of nervousness and anxiety.

Answer choice (B): The permanence of the traits is not an issue in the stimulus.

Answer choice (C): Although the argument does act as described in this answer choice, this is not an error. On the GMAT, authors have the right to make premises that contain certain claims. Remember, the focus is not on the premises but where the author goes with the argument once a premise is created.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer.  The conclusion can be diagrammed as: HP = hypertensive personality, HBP = high-blood pressure, HPHBP. This answer choice describes a classic error of causality: two events occurring simultaneously are mistakenly interpreted to be in a causal relationship. There are many other possibilities for the arrangement: the two events could be caused by a third event (for example, genetics could cause both a hypertensive personality and high blood pressure), the events could be reversed (the high blood pressure could actually cause the hypertensive personality), or there may be situations where the two do not occur together.

Answer choice (E): Although the argument does act as described in this answer choice, this is not an error. The author is allowed to focus on nervousness and anxiety to the exclusion of other traits. To analogize, imagine a speaker says, “The Kansas City Royals have bad pitching and this makes them a bad team.” The Kansas City Royals might also wear blue, but the speaker is not obligated to mention that trait when discussing why the Royals are a bad baseball team. In much the same way, the author of this stimulus is not obligated to mention other traits people with high blood-pressure may have.

AbhishekP220108 · Answer

Let's look at the Argument

There is person named Vishal, he has High BP issue and also he is more nervous and anxious, in comparison to Rishi who has normal blood pressure and not that much nervous and anxious. Based on this fact author concluded that nervousness and anxiousness caused high BP to Vishal.

Since we have to find a flaw in the reasoning of author.

Just on the fact that two things are correlated, he concluded that 
A caused B, it may be the case that B cause A or there is C which caused B or C caused both A and B.

By looking at this analysis D perfectly matches the flaw.

A. It is not the flaw. This is defined already

B. No presupposition done

C. Claim is Hypersensitivity causes High BP. So incorrect

E. Othe personality trait has in person with high BP not a point. The conclusion can still be true so incorrect

People with high blood pressure are generally more nervous and anxious

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GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

People with high blood pressure are generally more nervous and anxious

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