Logical Reasoning

PT105 · S2 · Q23 Chronic back pain is usually caused

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Chronic back pain is usually caused by a herniated or degenerated spinal disk.

Statements

Causal (usually caused by) Quantifier (most / 1 out of 5)

Most cases of chronic back pain are caused by a bad spinal disk. 1 out 5 people over 30 have a bad spinal disk, but no chronic back pain.

Causal Difference-Maker (brought out by) Quantifier (generally)

When those people who have a bad disk but no chronic back pain eventually DO get chronic pain, it's usually caused by insufficient exercise, allowing the abs and spinal muscles to deteriorate.

Evaluate

There aren't any obvious directions to go with combining these facts, but we can be reasonably confident that the correct answer will reinforce the causal difference-maker identified in the last sentence.

There are multiple Most claims, but none of them are talking about the same set of people, so we can't do a Trait Overlap inference there.

We might be able to say something like, , since the people who start out without pain but later develop it do so as a result of insufficient exercise. If they could/would have exercised, they potentially could have prevented the chronic pain that later developed from their bad disk.

Goal

Be wary of strong language, out of scope ideas, or unknown comparisons. Expect the correct answer to combine ideas from 2 or more claims.

23.

The statements above, if true, most strongly support which one of the following?

  1. Four out of five people

    Too Strong: will be sure / never

    This is way, way too extreme. It's trying to play off the idea that 1/5 of people over 30 have a bad disk, but no chronic symptoms. That doesn't mean they never will. It means they currently don't.

    0% picked this

  2. People who exercise their abdominal

    Too Strong: sure to be free

    Again, we have language that is comically extreme. We certainly wouldn't ever believe this claim in real life. No one is "sure to be free" from chronic back pain. Nothing in this paragraph would allow us to guarantee someone a pain-free rest of days.

    5% picked this

  3. Patients rarely suffer even mild

    Out of Scope

    Out of Scope: mild / fleeting pain Too Strong: rarely We never discussed the idea of mild or fleeting pain. It's very possible that patients frequently experience mild pain when their disk first gets messed up. Nothing in this paragraph suggests otherwise. The passage was only talking about people who did or didn't have chronic pain (which means constantly recurring pain, the opposite of fleeting pain, which only lasts for a bit before disappearing).

    22% picked this

  4. Doctors can accurately predict which

    Out of Scope: doctors

    Nothing in this paragraph mentions doctors or allows us to derive what doctors can / can't do.

    3% picked this

  5. Correct

    There is a strategy that

    Why this is right

    This is lovably soft wording that reinforces the Causal Difference-Maker (don't exercise your core enough --c--> chronic pain later in life). We know there's a slice of people (1 out of 5 of people over 30) who currently have bad disks but don't currently have chronic pain. We hear that if they get it later in life, it'll be because of insufficient exercise. So getting 'sufficient exercise' would be a strategy that people with bad disks could currently try in order to hopefully avoid, or at least delay, when their bad disk turns into chronic pain.

    Skill tested: Most Supported · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    71% picked this

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