Doctors in Britain have long suspected

Answer choices

1. A

   Weakens11% picked this

   Some people wear tinted glasses not because they choose to do so but because a medical condition of their eyes

   This provides an alternate reason someone might be wearing tinted glasses. This makes the conclusion less likely. The more reasons there are for wearing tinted glasses (or the more people there are wearing tinted glasses for some other reason), the less we would assume that someone wearing tinted glasses was prone to depression / hypochondria.

   11%
2. B

   Correct56% picked this

   Even a depressed or hypochondriacal person can have valid medical complaints, so a doctor should perform all the usual objective

   Why this is right

   No one ever said we shouldn't use diagnostic tests on people who are depressed or have hypochondria. No one was talking about them having invalid medical complaints. I'm not sure who this answer choice is yelling at, but it doesn't seem addressed at this argument. Hence, it doesn't weaken this argument.

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

   56%
3. C

   Weakens5% picked this

   The confirmatory tests were not done for places such as western North America where the usual quality of light differs

   This is certainly a very weird type of weaken answer, but it suggests that the sample of data being collected in Britain might be too atypical a lighting atmosphere from which to draw broad conclusions. This is a very narrow, tiny complaint, so it weakens to only a puny degree, but it still does more than the completely irrelevant correct answer.

   5%
4. D

   Weakens14% picked this

   Fashions with respect to wearing tinted glasses differ in different parts

   This provides an alternate reason someone might be wearing tinted glasses: for fashion reasons. Just like (A), by providing a different reason why someone might be wearing tinted glasses, you make the conclusion less likely to be true.

   14%
5. E

   Weakens14% picked this

   At the hospitals where the tests were given, patients who were admitted for conditions less ambiguous than heart pain or digestive distress did not

   This, like (C), is a very puny weakener, but it does give us data points where there wasn't a relationship between tinted glasses and depression or hypochondria. So just on its face it weakens the conclusion somewhat, because the author is telling us those two things will go hand in hand.

   14%