Logical Reasoning

PT141 · S4 · Q16 Stress is a common cause of high

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Stress is a common cause of high blood pressure.

Facts

causal (cause, by, thereby)

Stress >> high BP Calming mind >> reduced stress >> lower BP Exercise >> calm mind

Evaluate

The #1 thing we read for on Most Supported is cause/effect relationships. This stimulus gave us like five of them. Our next question would be, "Do any of them chain together?"

Two of them mention blood pressure (although they somewhat redundantly tell us that more stress leads to higher BP and lower stress leads to lower BP. Two of them mention calmed minds, so we can chain them to get this:

Exercise >> calm mind >> reduced stress >> lower BP

Goal

These are very weak connections ... "some people lower BP by calming their minds" / "Most people who exercise can calm their minds".

We can't be sure we can get from exercise to lower BP, but it's highly suggested, so if an answer is weakly worded we'd be okay with inferring that connection.

But, as always, we'll look for the most provable answer.

16.

Which one of the following is most strongly supported by the information above?

  1. For at least some people,

    Reversal / Negation

    The stimulus says reducing stress lowers blood pressure for some — the direction is stress >> blood pressure. This answer reverses it, claiming lower blood pressure causes lower stress. Nothing in the stimulus supports that backwards causal direction.

    2% picked this

  2. Most people with high blood

    Too Strong

    The stimulus says "some people can lower their blood pressure" by reducing stress — not most. So we can't conclude that most people with high blood pressure can lower it through stress reduction.

    9% picked this

  3. Most people who do not

    Too Strong

    The stimulus says exercise can calm the mind for most people — but it doesn't say that not exercising causes higher stress. People who don't exercise might use other ways to calm their minds.

    2% picked this

  4. Engaging in exercise can directly

    Too Strong

    The stimulus describes an indirect chain: exercise >> calmer mind >> reduced stress >> lower BP This answer says exercise can directly lower blood pressure — skipping all the intermediate steps.

    10% picked this

  5. Correct

    For at least some people,

    Why this is right

    The stimulus says that most people can calm their minds by exercising. And it says that calming the mind thereby reduces stress. The "for at least some" hedge keeps the inference safely within what the stimulus supports.. The correct answer didn't reward the full chain, but it doesn't need to. And it's become increasingly common for correct answers on conditional/causal chains to not do the full head to tail inference, but rather some intermediate chain.

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

    76% picked this

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