Doctors in Britain have long suspected

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong: never organically caused16% picked this

   Depression is not caused in some cases by an organic condition

   It wouldn't hurt the author to think that depression is caused by an organic condition, so there's no reason that he needs to assume this isn't the case.

   16%
2. B

   Negation Does Nothing12% picked this

   Wearers do not think of the tinted glasses as a means of distancing themselves

   If people who wear tinted glasses do think of them as a means of distancing themselves from other people, does that provide an alternate explanation for the correlation between depression/hypochondria and tinted glasses? No. Would the negation hurt the plausibility that tinted glasses wearers always have depression or hypochondria? Nope. It would actually fit very nicely with the author's story that the wearer is depressed or is a hypochondriac -- both conditions are associated with people not wanting to be close to other people. Since the negation would either do nothing or strengthen, there's no reason to say the author needs to assume this idea.

   12%
3. C

   Irrelevant: many causes7% picked this

   Depression can have many causes, including actual conditions about which it is reasonable for anyone

   The author never talks about what causes depression, so whether there are many causes or one cause is not going to change anything the author said (unless we were told that one cause of depression was wearing tinted glasses!)

   7%
4. D

   Negation Doesn't Weaken5% picked this

   For hypochondriacs wearing tinted glasses, the glasses serve as a visual signal to others that the

   If this were true, it would somewhat fit plausibly with the author's story that people wearing tinted glasses are doing so because they are depressed or have hypochondria. But if we negate this it doesn't weaken at all. It's not an objection to this argument to say that hypochondriacs wearing tinted glasses are not trying to warn others that their health is delicate.

   5%
5. E

   Correct60% picked this

   The tinting does not dim light to the eye enough to depress the

   Why this is right

   And here comes Reverse Causality, stepping up to the plate. If we negate this, we get the classic Reverse Causality objection to an author's "if X and Y are correlated, then X causes Y" logic. negation: the tinted glasses do cause the person wearing them to have a depressed mood. This offers an alternate explanation for the correlation between tinted glasses and depression. It's not that people are wearing tinted glasses because they're depressed. It's that people are depressed because they're wearing tinted glasses.

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

   60%