Researcher: A number of studies have suggested

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct44% picked this

   The methods by which the studies measured whether clients improved primarily concerned immediate symptom relief and failed to address

   Why this is right

   This is a really tricky correct answer, because it essentially hurts the value of the evidence. Since the studies ignored important kinds of improvement, it isn’t really fair to say that these clients had similar levels of improvement from their psychotherapy. We don’t know if the different types of therapy really provided similar levels of help, because important kinds of improvement weren’t measured. This hits the author’s argument way upstream, suggesting that the data the author is going off of isn’t providing a full, accurate picture.

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

   44%
2. B

   Out of Scope: “long-term psychotherapy”5% picked this

   On average, clients improve more dramatically when they receive long-term psychotherapy, a year or longer in duration, than when

   This argument is only about assessing what benefit short-term therapy has and what aspects of that therapy contribute to that benefit. Long-term therapy is totally outside the boundaries of relevance.

   5%
3. C

   Irrelevant Comparison: “trained / untrained” / Opposite12% picked this

   The studies found that psychotherapy by a trained counselor does not result in any greater improvement, on average, among clients than does

   This comparison is either irrelevant or strengthens the argument. If there’s no difference in improvement based on the talent/skill of the therapist, then it supports the author’s notion that the beneficial part of the therapy is something general and simple like listening to the client.

   12%
4. D

   Unclear or Opposite Impact36% picked this

   The specific techniques and interventions used by therapists practicing different kinds of

   We can’t use this to say, “there aren’t any aspects that are common to all psychotherapies”, because the author has already identified at least one example of one. So learning that these therapies have huge differences (and yet seem to be achieving similar client outcomes) would help the author’s case. It would be pretty implausible for lots of very different techniques to achieve the same level of client improvement. It is more likely that something common to all the therapies would achieve the same level of client improvement.

   36%
5. E

   Irrelevant Comparison: “more-experienced / inexperienced”3% picked this

   More-experienced therapists tend to use a wider range of techniques and interventions in psychotherapy than

   This argument is comparing the effectiveness of different types of therapies, not different types of therapists. We would have no way of relating this fact about different experience levels of therapists and assigning it any relevance to different types of therapies.

   3%