Logical Reasoning

PT2 · S2 · Q14 The “suicide wave” that followed

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The “suicide wave” that followed the United States stock market crash of October 1929 is more legend than fact.

Conclusion

The "suicide wave" that supposedly followed the 1929 stock market crash is more legend than fact.

rephrase: the 1929 stock market crash didn't cause a big wave of suicides.

Evidence

October and November 1929 had comparatively low monthly suicide totals; only three other months were lower. The summer months, when the market was flourishing, had substantially higher monthly counts.

Evaluate

This is an Anti-Causal conclusion. As the defense lawyer, we're arguing that the stock market crash did cause a wave of suicides.

The author's saying,

Goal

We need to make some excuse for why the summer months had higher suicide rates, or make an excuse for why Oct / Nov had comparatively lower rates.

Or maybe we just need to argue that the wave of suicides caused by the crash wasn't immediate. It took a few months for economic desperation to set in, so we should really be looking at months like Dec / Jan to observe the wave of suicides.

14.

Which one of the following, if true, would best challenge the conclusion of the passage?

  1. The suicide rate is influenced

    No Impact

    The general claim that suicide rates depend on many factors is one of those wishy-washy No Impact answers like, "Differences exist / things change". This doesn't help us in any way to address the author's evidence about summer of 1929 vs. fall of 1929, nor does it give us any way to argue that the stock market crash led to a wave of suicides.

    3% picked this

  2. October and November have almost

    Opposite

    If October and November typically have relatively high suicide rates, that helps the author. That means that suicide rates in Oct / Nov of 1929 were much lower than we usually see during those months. That helps the author argue that the crash didn't lead to an uptick in suicides.

    6% picked this

  3. Correct

    The suicide rate in October

    Why this is right

    The author is trying to argue that Oct / Nov don't look like there's an uptick in suicide, since they have lower rates than the summer months do. But according to this answer, Oct / Nov had suicide rates that were much higher than typical Oct / Nov. In an indirect sense, this responds to the author's evidence by suggesting that Oct / Nov are always lower than the summer months (i.e. your evidence is dumb / misleading). But more simply, this answer directly helps us argue that the stock market crash of October 1929 caused an uptick in suicides. After all, the suicide rate in Oct / Nov of 1929 was much higher than normal!

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

    86% picked this

  4. During the years surrounding the

    No Impact

    If anything this vibes like it supports the author, because it's saying that months toward the end of the year (Oct / Nov / Dec) usually have higher suicide rates than months in the beginning of the year. That helps the author say, "and yet in 1929, when there supposedly was this wave of suicides, the end of the year months had comparatively lower suicide rates". In reality, this has no effect on the argument, because the stimulus acknowledged that there are three months with lower suicide rates than Oct / Nov's rates (this answer is essentially suggesting that those three lowest suicide months are Jan / Feb / March).

    2% picked this

  5. Because of seasonal differences, the

    No Impact

    This is almost lovely, because it sounds like it could form the basis of an objection that sounds like, "Hey, author, it's not fair to compare the summer suicide rate to the fall suicide rate, because we don't expect those to be the same." But "different" is unclear. Different how? If we expect Oct / Nov to have lower suicide rates than summer months, then this would weaken the argument. But if we expect Oct / Nov to have higher suicide rates than summer months, then this would strengthen the argument. The fact that it creates some doubt probably still has a bit of a weakening effect, but certainly not as much as the correct answer, which directly tells us that Oct / Nov of 1929 had higher than average rates of suicide, compared to other Octobers / Novembers.

    3% picked this

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