Powerscore Question - Cause and Effect

[vineetbatra]

Doctors in Britain have long suspected that patients who wear tinted eyeglasses are abnormally prone to depression and hypochondria. Psychological tests given there to hospital patients admitted for physical complaints like heart pain and digestive distress confirmed such a relationship. Perhaps people whose relationship to the world is psychologically painful
choose such glasses to reduce visual stimulation, which is perceived as irritating. At any rate, it can be concluded that when such glasses are worn, it is because the wearer has a tendency to be depressed or hypochondriacal.
The argument assumes which one of the following?
(A) Depression is not caused in some cases by an organic condition of the body.
(B) Wearers do not think of the tinted glasses as a means of distancing themselves from other people.
(C) Depression can have many causes, including actual conditions about which it is reasonable for anyone to be depressed.
(D) For hypochondriacs wearing tinted glasses, the glasses serve as a visual signal to others that the wearer's health is delicate.
(E) The tinting does not dim light to the eye enough to depress the wearer's mood substantially.


In this Q the book says the C is depression and Effect is Glasses.

The first sentence says that Patients who wear glasses are prone to depression. So the cause here is glasses and effect is depression.

I think the reason is that C-E in the conclusion takes precedence over C-E in the premise.

Am I correct?

[Phirozz]

Doctors in Britain have long suspected that patients who wear tinted eyeglasses are abnormally prone to depression and hypochondria. Psychological tests given there to hospital patients admitted for physical complaints like heart pain and digestive distress confirmed such a relationship. Perhaps people whose relationship to the world is psychologically painful
choose such glasses to reduce visual stimulation, which is perceived as irritating. At any rate, it can be concluded that when such glasses are worn, it is because the wearer has a tendency to be depressed or hypochondriacal.
The argument assumes which one of the following?
(A) Depression is not caused in some cases by an organic condition of the body.
(B) Wearers do not think of the tinted glasses as a means of distancing themselves from other people.
(C) Depression can have many causes, including actual conditions about which it is reasonable for anyone to be depressed.
(D) For hypochondriacs wearing tinted glasses, the glasses serve as a visual signal to others that the wearer's health is delicate.
(E) The tinting does not dim light to the eye enough to depress the wearer's mood substantially.


In this Q the book says the C is depression and Effect is Glasses.

The first sentence says that Patients who wear glasses are prone to depression. So the cause here is glasses and effect is depression.

I think the reason is that C-E in the conclusion takes precedence over C-E in the premise.

Am I correct?

Conclusion is that wearer has a tendency to be depressed or hypochondriacal which is supported by E because it is saying tinting does not cause depression. If E is true conclusion is validated.
Is the answer E

[jpjp]

I think it's E as well.

My reasoning is as follows:

Conclusion: when such glasses are worn, it is because the wearer has a tendency to be depressed or hypochondriacal

Before even looking at the choices, you should already see the flaw in logic that the author assumes x leads to y, and that y does not lead to x, therefore we need an answer choice to support that y does not lead to x in order for the conclusion to hold up. So we need an answer that tells us that the glasses doesn't cause the depression (y does not lead to x), in order to conclude that the depression causes the person to wear the glasses (x leads to y).

E is the only assumption that states that the glasses doesn't affect the mood (which leads to depression), therefore that is the answer.


OP - To answer your question, I think the wording of the first sentence is just weird, but I think it was mean as an overview of the discussed correlation, without establishing what leads to what. I know it reads like tint glasses leads to depression, but I dont think it was meant that way, so I dont think you can really establish an C-E from it, although I can see why you would think that based on the wording. But you're right in that the conclusion should trump any other sentence when it comes to determining what you assumption should be, especially if one of the premises has some ambiguity to it.

[kstv]

(A) Depression is not caused in some cases by an organic condition of the body and (C) Depression can have many causes, including actual conditions about which it is reasonable for anyone to be depressed appears two side of the coin.
The Q stem - Psychological tests given there to hospital patients admitted for physical complaints like heart pain and digestive distress confirmed such a relationship.
These are not ailment but may be caused due to depression. Then option A appears better.
(B) Wearers do not think of the tinted glasses as a means of distancing themselves from other people. Negative as -Q stem - Perhaps people whose relationship to the world is psychologically painful choose such glasses to reduce visual stimulation, which is perceived as irritating.
(D) For hypochondriacs wearing tinted glasses, the glasses serve as a visual signal to others that the wearer's health is delicate. - Nothing mentioned about others perception.
(E) The tinting does not dim light to the eye enough to depress the wearer's mood substantially. Frankly, this appears out of scope , though majority is for it.

[paddle_sweep]

Please post the OA and explanation.

[frank1]

I say E (after 2:20 minutes)
Confused between C and E

[Target2009]

IMO _ E

[crimson2283]

IMO E

The conclusion states - When such glasses are worn, it is because the wearer has a tendency to be depressed or hypochondriacal, which means the author assumes wearing tinted glasses causes depression.

E states - The tinting does not dim light to the eye enough to depress the wearer's mood substantially, which means Depression is not caused by wearing tinted glasses. This clearly states that causality can't be reversed, hence this is the answer.

[DarkKnight]

one more for E.

[GMATMadeEasy]

I think everyone has ignored the question from the original poster.

that premise and conclusion have revered the cause and effect relationship. Answer is well explained in Powerscore and is almost cler too . However, I had the same question as original poster when i did go through this question.

We need an expert help , i suppose.


David , Geva please...

[David@VeritasPrep]

Got a PM on this one...

I think that jpjp has given a great response above he states (and OP means "original poster" here):

"OP - To answer your question, I think the wording of the first sentence is just weird, but I think it was mean as an overview of the discussed correlation, without establishing what leads to what. I know it reads like tint glasses leads to depression, but I dont think it was meant that way, so I dont think you can really establish an C-E from it, although I can see why you would think that based on the wording. But you're right in that the conclusion should trump any other sentence when it comes to determining what you assumption should be, especially if one of the premises has some ambiguity to it."

What jpjp is saying is that the original statement is just like "hey we have noticed this..." So let's say that we have the sentence "Men get more speeding tickets than women do." This is not attributing causation, perhaps the men drive faster or drive more miles or police are against men and give out more tickets. Noticing a correlation does not always mean that we are pointing to a cause. Look for cause words to do this...in the case of this question the causation wording is in that last sentence " it can be concluded that when such glasses are worn, it is because the wearer has a tendency to be depressed or hypochondriacal."

So when you just have someone recognizing that things show up together like "I have noticed that people who where large shoes are often tall" this is not saying that the shoes make then tall. It is just an observation.

So nice job jpjp.

[GMATMadeEasy]

thanks David. et thanks jpjp .

I had missed jpjp explanation as there were many posts just answering OA.