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Endorphins

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lunarpower GMAT Instructor
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Post Fri Apr 16, 2010 7:59 pm
iamcste wrote:
1. Usally, whenever we have a blank -----------------------------preceded by premise indicator such as "because" its supposed to be an assumption qtn but this one turned to be a weakning question.....my questions are how do we identify whether its an assumption or weakener question particularly when we have a blank? what words/indicators actually signals this question as a weakener question?
i'm curious -- where did you get the statistic that most cr problems containing blanks are "find the assumption" questions?

in general, i've seen so few of these (in official materials) that i would feel uneasy making such generalizations in the first place, but i don't remember noticing a preponderance of assumption questions among them.

in this particular problem, note the pairing of the following transition words:
"it has been suggested that..."
... and then, in the sentence containing the blank,
"however ... that statistic would be what we would expect [even if the above conditions do not hold]"

i don't think there are any simple transitions that you can memorize here in order to tell immediately that this is a "weaken" question; you have to probe the nature of the passage itself, noting the interaction between the different statements.
in general, transition words such as the ones noted above will help you figure out that interaction, but i don't think there's a single list of words that you could just memorize.

Quote:
2. where is the conclusion of this question?
it doesn't have just one conclusion. the

it contains a subsidiary conclusion ("it has been suggested that regular release of endorphins increases people's longevity"), but the ultimate purpose of the passage is to argue against that subsidiary conclusion.

the ultimate conclusion of the entire argument is the final sentence, which basically amounts to "the reasons given above in explanation of the statistic are wrong".

Quote:
3. does the first two statements as mentioned below convey that regular volunteering leads to longevity? which statement is co-relation and which one is causation?

4. what is the role of the statistics statment "And a statistic on adults who regularly engage in volunteer work helping others shows that they live longer, on average, than adults who do not volunteer" in this question
#4:
this is a classic statement of CORRELATION. it merely states that one statistic is related to another statistic, i.e., they both increase or decrease in tandem.

as you are probably well aware if you've done many critical reasoning questions, the mere fact that two quantities increase or decrease together does not indicate that one of them is causing the other.

as far as the purpose of the other two statements (question 3) --

When people engage in activities that help others, their brain releases endorphins,
the brain's natural opiates, which induce in people a feeling of well-being.

this one is presented as a fact, with which you cannot take issue: volunteer work releases endorphins.
because this is presented as a fact (and, indeed, is presented as a causal relationship), this is the sentence that allows you to treat volunteer work as a guarantee of the release of of endorphins.

once you have that statement, turn to this one:
It has been suggested that regular release of endorphins increases people's longevity.

this is the causal relationship that is (fallaciously) inferred from the above correlation: it has been observed that people who volunteer (and who therefore release endorphins while doing so) happen to also live longer than other people, so the people making this "suggestion" are seeing that correlation and taking it to imply causation.

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Post Fri Apr 16, 2010 8:05 pm
Quote:
5. did any one feel that statement A is actually a restatement of "a statistic on adults who regularly engage in volunteer work helping others shows that they live longer, on average, than adults who do not volunteer".....statistic statment talk about adults and option A talk about men and women ( which are adults too) so where is subtle difference that makes A as the correct answer....somehow I dont see this gender as an alternative reason to weaken this question? what am I missing?
it's not a subtle difference at all, actually -- it's a huge difference.
the reason that it doesn't seem huge, in this particular question, is simply because this subject material is quite remote from the experience of most people, and so "common sense" can't be applied.

to illustrate what's going on with choice (a), i'll present an analogy, which uses exactly the same logic but will be much, much easier to understand:
among children ages 2-12, those children with larger shoes consistently answered more questions correctly on a test of vocabulary. it has been suggested, then, that large feet help these children store vocabulary words.
however, this correlation is what we would expect even if foot size is irrelevant to vocabulary storage, sense ____:

(A) vocabulary increases with age, and older children are more likely than younger children to have large feet.

note that this is exactly the same logic used in the question at hand, but it's easier to understand, sense, in this context, the originally suggested causal relationship is absolutely preposterous, while the extraneous variable mentioned in choice (a) is obviously responsible for the observed correlation.

Quote:
6. Is B incorrect because the statment doesnt connect volunteering with longevity
no, that choice is incorrect because the number of people volunteering is absolutely irrelevant to anything in the argument. (the argument talks only about the qualities of those who volunteer vs. the qualities of those who don't -- it doesn't matter how many people are in each category)

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He wears white after Labor Day, gets 55% of his calories from protein, and takes standardized tests for fun.

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Post Fri Apr 16, 2010 8:10 pm
Quote:
7. Is C incorrect because we dont know how mask ing the symptom connect with longevity or do we think from this statement that hiding symptoms may somehow lead to shorter life i.e reduce longevity
remember what you're doing here -- your job in this problem is to mount a counterargument!
in other words, you are actually arguing that volunteering does NOT boost longevity! (see above for the transition words that indicate this)

if choice (c) is true, then it serves as plausible evidence that volunteering actually could precipitate an increase in longevity, at least in people who have at most mild symptoms of disease. that is exactly the opposite of what you are looking for.

Quote:
8. In E, can we connect stress to longevity?
the topic of stress is extraneous -- it does nothing to de-couple the concepts of volunteerism and long life.
i.e., even if the statement is true, it has nothing to do with the correlation examined in the passage.

Quote:
9. In D, Is it incorrect because we dont have connect between volunteering and longevity?
yup -- this choice also has nothing to do with the material discussed in the passage.

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Ron is a Director of Curriculum Development at Manhattan GMAT. He has been teaching various standardized tests for almost 20 years.

He wears white after Labor Day, gets 55% of his calories from protein, and takes standardized tests for fun.

Pueden hacerle preguntas a Ron o en inglés o en español.

If you send Ron a private message, please allow 1-2 weeks for a response.

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Post Sat Apr 17, 2010 12:06 am
received a pm.

Ron's first couple of posts in this thread contain some great CR gems.

Basically, the argument looks like this:

"X does not cause Z because____"

("Volunteering (X) does not cause a boost in longevity (Z) because_______").

Because of "because", we need to insert a reason that would support the conclusion that X doesn't cause Z.

So we should predict: X does not cause Z because something else (Y) does.

That's what choice A does.

For a question whose structure is identical, see OG12, CR question #57.

___________

Quote:
1. Usally, whenever we have a blank -----------------------------preceded by premise indicator such as "because" its supposed to be an assumption qtn but this one turned to be a weakning question.....
I don't see how a fill-in-the-blank argument question can be asking for an assumption since assumptions are UNSTATED.

Most fill-in the blank questions can be classified as inference. As Ron points out, this one functions as a "cloaked" weaken/strengthen question: in many weaken questions, the author advances a causal (or NOT causal) argument, and you have to weaken by finding a choice that suggests alternate causation (or by affirming causation if it is a NOT causal arument).

Similarly, in this question, the author advances a NOT causal argument, and we have to strengthen that NOT causal argument by finding (a clear suggestion of) alternate causation. Or, if we convert the NOT causal argument to a causal argument, then we have to weaken by finding alternate causation. No matter which way you slice it, the task here is that of finding an alternative cause; so, the task in this question is the same as it is in many weaken qustions.

In all fill-in-the-blank questions, you should think hard about the arguer's intent in arguing, and use keywords that telegraph that intent (in this question, we had "however" and "because").

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Post Sat Apr 17, 2010 7:10 am
wow! wow! wow!

all the posts above show that how much effort is actually put in making a CR question! The stimulus, the credited response and the other 4 incorrect options are made after so much deliberation !

Hail LSAT, hail GMAT, hail Ron and hail Testluv!

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Post Sun Apr 18, 2010 8:59 pm
harshavardhanc wrote:
wow! wow! wow!

all the posts above show that how much effort is actually put in making a CR question! The stimulus, the credited response and the other 4 incorrect options are made after so much deliberation !

Hail LSAT, hail GMAT, hail Ron and hail Testluv!
Harsha Bhai,

Hahahha..Now u have become the fan of Testluv & Ron like me....They are damn cool & awesome man when comes to CR & GMAT on the whole!!

One more standing Ovation to them!!

I was expecting this one frm u actually..I pinged Deepak Dada for some Gyan wrt this CR..and it was all gems!!

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Post Thu Apr 29, 2010 6:33 am
Thanks to Ron, Test Luv, Harsha and govi for all comments on this CR, yes its clevery disguised weaken CR question

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