Logical Reasoning

PT153 · S2 · Q10 Researchers have found that most peopleʼs bodies

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Researchers have found that most peopleʼs bodies make an enzyme, CYP2A6, that plays a crucial role in eliminating nicotine, the addictive drug in cigarettes, from the body.

Setup

There's an enzyme, CYP2A6, that helps to eliminate nicotine from the body.

Smokers whose bodies make the most common form of CYP2A6 tend to be more frequent smokers than smokers whose bodies make less common forms of CYP2A6.

Here's why -- the faster nicotine is eliminated from your body, the more you crave another cigarette, and

Fill in the Blank

... the most common form of CYP2A6 eliminates nicotine from your body faster than other forms of CYP2A6 or no CYP2A6.

Since we need to loop back to "having the most common form of CYP2A6" and make it explain "smoke more often", we are trying to relate "most common form of CYP2A6" to the trigger we're given here that makes you smoke another cigarette.

Goal

Look for some safely worded version of , and thus the more you crave another cigarette, and thus the more you smoke.

That causal chain would explain why smokers with the most common form of CYP2A6 tend to smoke the most.

10.

Which one of the following, if true, most effectively completes the explanation above?

  1. Correct

    the most common form of

    Why this is right

    This connects the special thing we know about frequent-smokers (they have the most common form of CYP2A6) to the trigger we have that leads to more smoking (faster elimination of nicotine from the body). (by the way, this question does an astoundingly good job at making us think we read "Smokers whose bodies make the most of this enzyme". I read it that way the first time I did this problem, and I just read it that way again. I'm not sure how they're doing it, but I just read over "most common form" and think it's about quantity of CYP2A6, rather than the specific form of CYP2A6. I had already written the explanation incorrectly when I got to the answers and finally noticed my mistake)

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

    70% picked this

  2. most people whose bodies make

    Unrelated to Goal

    We don't want an answer talking about people who don't smoke. We're trying to explain why "most common form of CYP2A6" and "smoke the most" are correlated.

    1% picked this

  3. if one?s body does not

    Too Weak

    This weakly makes the case that having CYP2A6 leads to more rapid elimination of nicotine, since lacking CYP2A6 leads to very slow elimination. However, this doesn't differentiate between "the most common form of CYP2A6" and any other form, and we need to do that in order to explain why smokers with the most common form tend to be the heaviest smokers.

    1% picked this

  4. the greater the quantity of

    Out of Scope: greater quantity

    If you misread the paragraph and thought that it said "smokers whose bodes make the most CYP2A6 tend to smoke more", then this would be your perfect answer. Unfortunately for those of us who read it that incorrect way, the passage never talks about varying quantities of CYP2A6. It just talks about different forms of CYP2A6 -- there's the most common form and then there are other forms.

    27% picked this

  5. helping to eliminate nicotine is

    Out of Scope: other functions

    Our job is to relate the "most common form of CYP2A6" to "smokes most often". This answer doesn't differentiate between the "most common form" and any other form of CYP2A6, so it will be functionally useless to us. And since it's talking about things other than eliminating nicotine, this answer won't even relate to smoking cravings.

    0% picked this

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