Logical Reasoning

PT114 · S4 · Q5 Toxicologist: A survey of oil-refinery workers

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Toxicologist: A survey of oil-refinery workers who work with MBTE, an ingredient currently used in some smog-reducing gasolines, found an alarming incidence of complaints about headaches, fatigue, and shortness of breath.

Conclusion

We can expect an increased incidence of headaches, fatigue, and shortness of breath.

Evidence (since)

A survey of oil-refinery workers who work with MBTE found an alarming incidence of complaints about headaches, fatigue, and shortness of breath.

Gasoline with MBTE will soon be widely used.

Evaluate

There is a causal assumption happening as the author goes from evidence to conclusion.

CURIOUS FACT: how come there is a higher incidence of headaches, fatigue, and shortness of breath among these workers who work with MBTE.

EXPLANATION: The MBTE causes those symptoms.

We can strengthen by making it more plausible that MBTE leads to such symptoms or by ruling out an alternate explanation for why those workers have those symptoms.

Goal

Eliminate the four answers that help us argue that as MBTE become more widely used, these symptoms will become more widespread.

5.

Each of the following, if true, strengthens the toxicologist's argument EXCEPT:

  1. Most oil-refinery workers who do

    Strengthens

    This suggests that oil-refinery workers not exposed to MBTE do not experience these symptoms, reinforcing the causal link between MBTE and the symptoms. This is the classic "No Cause, No Effect" plausibility strengthener.

    7% picked this

  2. Correct

    Headaches, fatigue, and shortness of

    Why this is right

    This states that the symptoms are common to several medical conditions but doesn't address the causal link to MBTE or support the prediction about the general population, making it irrelevant to the argument.

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

    80% picked this

  3. Since the time when gasoline

    Strengthens

    This makes the author's causal assumption that MBTE causes these symptoms more plausible, by providing data points where "cause is present, effect is present". It's a temporal correlation, that we didn't see the symptoms until MBTE was introduced.

    1% picked this

  4. Regions in which only gasoline

    Strengthens

    This provides more correlative data that where MBTE is present, the symptoms are present, and where it is absent, the symptoms are absent, supporting the causal assumption that MBTE leads to these symptoms.

    2% picked this

  5. The oil-refinery workers surveyed were

    Strengthens

    This notes that the surveyed workers were representative of the broader population, supporting the extrapolation that the general population could experience similar symptoms when MBTE use becomes widespread.

    11% picked this

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