Logical Reasoning

PT112 · S1 · Q18 Moderate exercise lowers the risk

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Moderate exercise lowers the risk of blockage of the arteries due to blood clots, since anything that lowers blood cholesterol levels also lowers the risk of hardening of the arteries, which in turn lowers the risk of arterial blockage due to blood clots; and, if the data reported in a recent study are correct, moderate exercise lowers blood cholesterol levels.

Conclusion

Moderate exercise lowers the risk of blocked arteries from blood clots.

Evidence (since, and)

Lowers → Lowers risk → lower risk blood chol harden art's blocked art's from blood clots

If the study's data is correct, moderate exercise lowers blood cholesterol levels.

Evaluate

On Sufficient Assumption, we ask ourselves what new terms or concepts appear only in the Conclusion (because those must be in the correct answer). Here, there are no new terms. Both "moderate exercise" and "lower risk of blocked arteries from blood clots" get discussed/defined in the evidence. That means that what ever fact or link we're missing is internal to the evidence.

Consider this argument: If Michelle is right, then Tom is a vegan. Vegans never eat meat. Thus, Tom does not eat meat.

Is it airtight? If not, what are we missing?

We're missing confirmation that Michelle is right. The argument, is logically airtight.

The only reason we can't sign off on the argument yet is that we don't know if Michelle is right or not about Tom being a vegan.

By analogy: If study is right, moderate exercise lowers blood cholesterol. Lower blood cholesterol lowers risk of hardened arteries, which lowers risk of blocked arteries due to blood clots.

The only thing keeping us from concluding that is knowing whether the study is correct in claiming that "moderate exercise lowers blood cholesterol".

Goal

Find an answer saying, .

18.

The conclusion drawn above follows logically if which one of the following is assumed?

  1. The recent study investigated the

    Unrelated to Goal

    We don't really care what the study was intending to investigate. We just need to know whether it's data is correct, because that's all that stopping us from deriving this conclusion.

    9% picked this

  2. Blockage of the arteries due

    Unrelated to Goal

    We don't really care what the effects of lowering your risk of blocked arteries would do. We only care about whether moderate exercise can cause a lower risk of blocked arteries. We can't prove that claim until we know that the study's data were accurate.

    5% picked this

  3. Lowering blood cholesterol levels lowers

    Unrelated to Goal

    This is an available inference from the evidence. One wouldn't call that an assumption in the first place, because it's not a new idea being assumed, it's just a logical consequence of the evidence. This evidence says that lower BC ⇢ lower hardening ⇢ lower blocked A's So, we already know what this answer choice is saying, meaning it will be functionally useless to us. We want an answer that "IF assumed", i.e. "if true / if added to what we already know", would now allow us to derive the conclusion. If an answer reiterates something we already know it can't possibly be correct. This answer fails to prove the conclusion because until we hear that we can trust the data in the recent study, we don't have any information about what moderate exercise does.

    30% picked this

  4. Correct

    The data reported in the

    Why this is right

    If we know the data is correct, then we know moderate exercise lowers BC, which lowers risk of hardened arteries, which lowers risk of blocked arteries from blood clots. So now we can derive the conclusion: moderate exercise leads to lower risk of blocked arteries from blood clots.

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

    46% picked this

  5. Hardening of the arteries increases

    Unrelated to Goal

    This is something derivable from the causal relationship described in the evidence, but we're not looking for an answer choice that we already know from the paragraph. This answer fails to prove the conclusion because until we hear that we can trust the data in the recent study, we don't have any information about what moderate exercise does.

    11% picked this

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