Critical Reasoning

Smoking is a known cause of certain serious health problems, including emphysema and lung cancer. Now, an additional concern can be added to the list of maladies caused by smoking. A recent study surveyed both smokers and nonsmokers, and found that smokers are significantly more anxious and nervous than nonsmokers.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument rests?
a. Anxiety and nervousness can lead to serious health problems.
b. Anxiety and nervousness do not make individuals more likely to start smoking.
c. Equivalent numbers of smokers and nonsmokers were surveyed for the study.
d. Smokers are aware of the various health problems attributed to smoking, including lung cancer and emphysema.
e. Smokers who had smoked a cigarette immediately before responding to the survey were more anxious and nervous than smokers who had not smoked for several hours.

IMO A

IMO : C, if the surveyed people were more non smokers than smokers...then the argument falls apart an vice versa. So it is necessary that the number of smokers and non smokers were equivalent in number and this is a valid assumption...can you please post the OA

glorydefined wrote:IMO : C, if the surveyed people were more non smokers than smokers...then the argument falls apart an vice versa. So it is necessary that the number of smokers and non smokers were equivalent in number and this is a valid assumption...can you please post the OA

We need some more thoughts on this problem, I'll post OA soon

my bad, its wrong...the correct answer is in this link

https://www.urch.com/forums/gmat-critica ... rdous.html

glorydefined wrote:my bad, its wrong...the correct answer is in this link

https://www.urch.com/forums/gmat-critica ... rdous.html

Thanks for the link.
Can anyone plz give some more examples on "Causation issue" [as given on one of the posts of the above link] which this CR is based upon.

OA is B

The way I looked at this problem was
- smoking causes emphysema and lung cancer etc.
- A recent study surveyed...significantly more anxious and nervous than nonsmokers.

That means a smoker becomes anxious and nervous after smoking. In other words, anxiety and nervousness are after effects of smoking,but not prior causes that leads to smoking.

Hence, B.Hope this helps, let me know?

vaibhav, where do you get these Qs from?

M09 wrote: vaibhav, where do you get these Qs from?

These are from MGMAT tests

I would go with option A as the correct option