Logical Reasoning

PT130 · S3 · Q23 Many scientific studies have suggested

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Many scientific studies have suggested that taking melatonin tablets can induce sleep.

Conclusion

Studies showing melatonin can induce sleep doesn’t mean it’s useful for treating insomnia.

Evidence

These studies mostly didn’t include insomniacs, and only a few people even seemed significantly affected by the melatonin.

Evaluation

Do we hear any assumptions? Not really, other than . It’s probably better to think through the lens of how we might object to this argument. If you wanted to defend the idea that these studies do help make the case that melatonin could be helpful for insomniacs what could we say or ask?

I would want to know about the studies that DID examine people with insomnia. Was the melatonin useful for them? What about those few subjects who appeared significantly affected by melatonin – were they insomniacs? We basically want reassurances that within these studies, we don’t have any compelling data that makes it look like melatonin could help insomniacs. The author has left a few blank spots in his re-telling of the studies, so a correct answer might fill in those blanks.

Goal

Look for something like, , or look for a brand new detail that corroborates the author’s notion that melatonin wouldn’t be useful for insomniacs.

23.

Which one of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument?

  1. A weaker correlation between taking

    Too Weak / Unclear Impact

    This is worth keeping at first, but it is not as impactful as C. The author leaves us wondering about the studies that did include insomniacs. This answer seems to help us believe the conclusion, because the data from the insomniac studies was even less compelling in terms of portraying melatonin as having any strong effect on inducing sleep. However, as soon as you add insomniacs (people who have a really hard time falling asleep) into a sleep study, the rate of people falling asleep is likely to go down compared to groups without insomniacs. That alone could explain the weaker correlation, whereas it might still be true that within this group, insomniacs who took the melatonin had an easier time sleeping than those who didn’t take it.

    23% picked this

  2. None of the studies that

    Too Weak / Opposite Direction

    This would weaken more than anything. Finding out studies were not representative makes us less likely to rely on them as evidence. Saying they were not fully representative is a very mild knock on them, but it’s still a detriment, not a strengthener.

    5% picked this

  3. Correct

    In the studies that included

    Why this is right

    This does what A is drifting towards, but this explicitly tells us about the insomniac data points in the study – they were not significantly affected by melatonin. The info in A is not as clear in that regard, as it provides a statement about the entire data set in the studies that had insomniacs, not specific data about the insomniacs.

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

    60% picked this

  4. Several people who were in

    Too Weak / Unclear Impact

    This is weakly worded, as it’s only about a handful of people, so it’s very unlikely to be correct. This handful of people benefited from the placebo effect, not the melatonin. But this doesn’t address our central questions: what about the studies that included insomniacs? Were any of the people who were actually given melatonin and appeared to be affected by it insomniacs?

    3% picked this

  5. If melatonin were helpful in

    Unclear Impact

    This is a very strong idea, which is desirable. The contrapositive says, “If you’re an insomniac who took melatonin and did not appear to be significantly affected by it, then melatonin is not helpful in treating insomnia.” This rule is perfectly designed to get us to our conclusion. Can we trigger this rule from what we know from the Evidence? Did the author provide examples of insomniacs who were given melatonin but did not seem significantly affected by it? She did not. Her evidence is unclear in regards to whether any insomniacs who took melatonin were or were not affected by it. Since we can’t trigger this conditional, this rule has no impact on our evaluation of the argument.

    9% picked this

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