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psychoanalytic theory--an unconscious belief

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by maihuna » Sun Aug 23, 2009 12:04 pm
According to psychoanalytic theory, people have unconscious beliefs that are kept from becoming conscious by a psychological mechanism termed "repression." Researchers investigating the nature of this mechanism observed occasions on which a patient undergoing therapy became aware of and expressed a previously unconscious belief. They found that such occasions were marked by an unusual decrease in the patient's level of anxiety.
If the information above is true, and if the researchers' investigation was properly conducted, then which of the following must also be true?
(A) Changes in the patient's anxiety level during therapy can generally be used as an accurate measure of the extent to which the patient is becoming conscious of previously repressed beliefs.
(B) Even when one of a patient's unconscious beliefs remains unconscious, researchers are sometimes able to discover this belief.
(C) If psychoanalytic theory is correct, then most conscious beliefs originate as unconscious beliefs.
(D) Researchers were able to distinguish expressed beliefs that had previously been unconscious from those that had long been conscious but that the patient had not previously expressed.
(E) Although the beliefs on which the mechanism of repression works are all unconscious, the operation of the mechanism itself is something of which patients are consciously aware.
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Source: — Critical Reasoning |

by ranell » Sun Aug 23, 2009 4:47 pm
(A) changes in the patient's anxiety level are out of scope in the argument.
(B) it is not stated or implied in the argument that researchers are sometimes able to discover unconscious belief
(C) it is not stated or implied in the argument that most conscious beliefs originate as unconscious beliefs; too extreme answer for GMAT
(D) CORRECT as if researchers observed occasions on which a patient undergoing therapy became aware of and expressed a previously unconscious belief, they should be able to distinguish unconscious beliefs from conscious ones. Otherwise researches wouldn't have found that such occasions coincided an unusual decrease in the patient's level of anxiety
(E) it is not stated or implied in the argument that a patient undergoing a therapy is aware of the operation of repression mechanism

So D is right answer
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by riteshbindal » Sun Aug 23, 2009 10:16 pm
D IMO. OA plz
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by srivas » Mon Aug 24, 2009 3:27 am
it should be D
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by vikram_k51 » Mon Aug 24, 2009 4:22 am
Will go with A.Though D looks close.
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by gmatmachoman » Mon Aug 24, 2009 10:53 am
IMO D

A was close.But there was no mention of changes in anxiety levels.So discarded A
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by kris77 » Sun May 15, 2016 3:48 pm
Well I feel D is the answer. I guess I'm right. If some expert could
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