Psychiatrist: In treating first-year students

Answer choices

1. A

   Boosts Author's Plausibility4% picked this

   At other universities, first-year students reporting the highest levels of spending on recreation also show the same degree of anxiety and depression as do

   When we're trying to strengthen causal or anti-causal relationships, it increases our author's causal interpretation when we get more data points that fit that story. Our author thinks "spending $ on rec" will not translate into "less anxiety / depression". These reports from other universities lend more credence to that idea.

   4%
2. B

   Boosts Author's Plausibility13% picked this

   Screening of first-year students at the university who report moderate levels of spending on recreation reveals that those students are less anxious and depressed

   Since the author said that the people spending the most could decrease their spending without increasing their anxiety / depression, it is helpful to him to learn that people at a middle tier of spending (which is the tier these max spenders would fall down towards if they started spending less) are actually less anxious and depressed than the max tier.

   13%
3. C

   Correct78% picked this

   Among adults between the ages of 40 and 60, increased levels of spending on recreation are strongly correlated with decreased

   Why this is right

   These data points go squarely against the author's thinking. They show an association between more spending on rec and less anxiety / depression.

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

   78%
4. D

   Evidence More Trustworthy3% picked this

   The screening instruments used by the psychiatrist are extremely accurate in revealing levels of anxiety and

   This helps the argument by making us feel better about the reliability of the data the author is going after. One might have objected, "Why should we trust the scores on these tests? Maybe everyone scores the same because the tests are poorly designed?" This rules out those objections and reassures us that this data is extremely accurate. Some students are under the impression that we're not supposed to ever support or oppose the evidence (they might write this off as a Premise Booster). There is no rule that says you can't strengthen or weaken a case by addressing the trustworthiness of the evidence. There are valid Strengthen answers that make underlying data more trustworthy and valid Weaken answers that essentially make the underlying data seem worthless.

   3%
5. E

   Boosts Author's Plausibility3% picked this

   Several of the psychiatrist's patients who are first-year students at the university have reduced their spending on recreation from very high levels to very

   This is one of the weakest strengtheners here since it only involves "several" data points, but those data points to fit the author's claim, so they do strengthen. Also the correct answer has data points that go directly against the author's claim, so this answer definitely strengthens more than something that weakens.

   3%