Critical Reasoning

The Ergonomic Society conducted a study that indicated that many people develop severe back problems during adulthood, and that virtually all such people who received chiropractic treatment showed great improvement. Therefore, in order to minimize the proportion of the population that suffers from back pain, the Ergonomic Society recommended that chiropractic treatment be directed toward those adults who suffer from severe back problems.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
a. Any person who receives chiropractic treatment for back pain may also benefit from other forms of treatment.
b. Large insurance carriers cover chiropractic care for back problems to a lesser degree than they do other medical treatments.
c. Individuals who receive chiropractic or other treatment prior to developing severe back problems are not less likely to develop back pain than those who do not.
d. Chiropractic treatment is more effective in treating severe back problems when utilized over a long period of time, as opposed to sporadically.
e. Severe back pain and other problems often cause individuals to miss workdays.

I would go with C using PoE. The Society recommends directing treatment towards people already sufferring from back pain, so they are assuming that people will anyway have back pains in adulthood, why else would they not target all adults.

Assumption Questions :
All assumption questions are also a sub category for weaken questions, only difference is whatever weakens is negated.(thus forming an assumption).

Also pay close attention to scope-qualifiers: adulthood, directed toward.


Argument :
People suffer from backpain.
Treatment given to those has resulted in significant improvement.

Hence :
to minimize the proportion of ppl suffering from backpain, treatment be directed only toward those individuals suffering from severe back pains.

If we were to weaken this statement, i would logically ask,
why not give treatment to everybody to prevent the back pain, rather than as a cure after it has occured.

Option C. precisely tells that the treatment to a person without backpain will not guarantee that the pain will not develop and hence is the right assumption.

My $0.01

IMO C

Negate the assumption ie: Individuals who receive chiropractic or other treatment prior to developing severe back problems are less likely to develop back pain than those who do not.

If true, the conclusion - in order to minimize the proportion of the population that suffers from back pain, the Ergonomic Society recommended that chiropractic treatment be directed toward those adults who suffer from severe back problems - gets weakened.

I feel C is wrong, aren't we supposed to consider only chiropractic treatment as opposed to other treatments in (C)

I feel D to be correct. anyone explain please and whats OA

satish, D is out of scope, nowhere in the argument is the time period mentioned, similar to B which talks about insurance and E talks about "miss workdays" These are all out of scope so we are left with A & C
A. weakens the argument.
so, the choice is C, negation stratergy confirms this choice

satish.nagdev wrote:I feel C is wrong, aren't we supposed to consider only chiropractic treatment as opposed to other treatments in (C)

I feel D to be correct. anyone explain please and whats OA

I think the answer is C. D has one extra clue about time so I think it will not related.

My 2 cents

Oa is C.. Sorry for the delay

One more for C