The claim that C strengthens the argument strikes me as debatable and hinges on how one understands addiction. If, for example, alcoholism is fundamentally influenced by one's environment, you could argue that if one were to visit clubs often enough, it could exacerbate, or even cause the illness. In this case, I suppose you could argue that C is a strengthener, in the sense that going to clubs too frequently can cause one to develop a disease in which one drinks too much. However, if you understand addiction as a disease that exists independent of one's environment, and that an untreated alcoholic is going to drink to excess irrespective of how often he/she visits a drinking establishment, then C clearly wouldn't be a strengthener, as the frequency of visits to a club would no longer be a culprit. To me, it's more concrete to claim that what alcoholics had been doing in the past can't shed much light on what a current survey reveals. (But the very fact that how C affects the argument is debatable is a good indication that it can't be the correct answer.)Mo2men wrote:Dear David,DavidG@VeritasPrep wrote: Sorry about that - I wrote this in a rush. C speaks of what alcoholics had done formerly. But we're talking about a recent survey. So this information is irrelevant. I'll edit my previous post.
Thanks for your ken replay and correction. But still my question: In Veritas official answer it is claimed that C STRENGTHEN the conclusion. How so? I understood as WEAKNER it as follows:
Many people who visited clubs 3+ recovered from alcohol addiction. So it is not necessarily to limit my visits to 3. I can go and enjoy my life and I will get recovered.
Regardless of the discussion, It took me hard time to understand D. I asked myself, what 2 minimum drinks had to do with someone? Are 2 strictly drinks can cause that damage for human or should take more? Even if I do not drink, my community or country does not have those drinkers to recognize the effect that much. Maybe you do understand me end but this is my view.
As for D, think about it this way. Imagine that the following numbers represent the number of drinks ordered by various patrons at a bar that had no minimum: {3, 0, 2, 7, 1, 0, 6.} Well, if all of those patrons were to frequent a bar with a 2-drink minimum, the folks who previously ordered 0 or 1 drink are going to have to order more than they wanted to, and the set would now look like this {3, 2, 2, 7, 2, 2, 6} and the average would increase. So it's more of a mathematical argument than an attempt to predict/understand human behavior.
