A recent study showed that people

Answer choices

1. A

   Out of Scope Causal Relationship1% picked this

   painful conditions will interfere with a person's ability to address problems

   This paragraph was never thinking about something affecting our ability to address problems quickly vs. reluctantly. It was only thinking about our habit of addressing problems quickly vs. reluctantly affecting something else (our stress level).

   1%
2. B

   Correct78% picked this

   refusing to think about something troubling contributes to a person's level

   Why this is right

   This is the first link in the author's imagined causal chain. refuse to more worse gum think about ? stress ? immune ? disease problems If refusing to think about problems has nothing to do with (does not contribute to) your stress level, then the author's 1st premise about gum disease / refusing to think has nothing to do with his 2nd premise about stress / immune. If those premises have nothing to do with each other, then the author won't be able to link them to make his gum disease / immune conclusion.

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

   78%
3. C

   Too Specific: highly stressful lives Opposite2% picked this

   people who have highly stressful lives tend to address problems quickly

   Our author is assuming that the people who refuse to address problems are more stressed, because that's how he's connecting a weakened immune system to gum disease. So the gist of this answer goes against what the author was envisioning. Our author is also only talking about someone's stress going up from them habitually refusing to confront their problems. He isn't ever talking about groups of people who do / don't have highly stressful lives.

   2%
4. D

   Too Strong8% picked this

   people who tend to address problems quickly and directly will invariably seek dental care at the

   Too Strong: invariably at first sign Weakens, if anything The author has spoken in safe generalities. He has never committed to the insanely strong claim that "every single person who tends to address problems head-on will invariably, with no exceptions ever, seek dental care at the very first sign of problems". We can't prove he's thinking this, and negating it wouldn't come close to weakening the argument. The negation would only be, "Oh, author --- there has been at least one time that a person who tends to address problems head-on waited to seek dental care at the second sign of problems." That one data point couldn't hurt the author at all.

   8%
5. E

   Out of Scope Causal Relationship10% picked this

   the reason some people refuse to think about problems is that they find addressing problems

   This argument only cares about what effect refusing to think about problems has (doing so causes stress, the author assumes). It doesn't deal with what causes someone to refuse to think about problems.

   10%