Logical Reasoning

PT3 · S4 · Q4 The mind and the immune system

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The mind and the immune system have been shown to be intimately linked, and scientists are consistently finding that doing good deeds benefits one’s immune system.

Facts

The mind and the immune system have been shown to be intimately linked.

Scientists are consistently finding that doing good deeds benefits one’s immune system.

The bone marrow and spleen, which produce the white blood cells needed to fight infection, are both connected by neural pathways to the brain.

Recent research has shown that the activity of these white blood cells is stimulated by beneficial chemicals produced by the brain as a result of magnanimous behavior.

Evaluate

What the heck does "magnanimous" mean? Do I need to know? I know the prefix "magna" sounds like "magnum" or big. I know "animous" sounds like "animal" or "animate". So is magnanimous behavior acting like a big animal? Or being big and animated in your actions? And how does that relate to the rest of this content?

It's uncommon for Most Supported stimuli to read like arguments, but when they do, the right answer tends to read like a Necessary Assumption. In this stimulus, we're told that the recent reseach about magnanimous behavior is an example of a finding that shows doing good deeds benefits your immune system. We're also told that magnanimus behavior stimulates the white blood cells, which are immune cells. OK, so if being magnaniums is good for your immune cells, and that supposedly proves that doing good deeds is good for your immune system, it seems like the author is assuming that magnanimous behavior involves doing good deeds.

That being said, we always try the answers on for size with an open mind in Most Supported questions. There are a lot of ways we might derive a well supported inference in the correct answer.

4.

The statements above, if true, support the view that

  1. Good deeds must be based

    Trap

    Too Strong (must) / Out of Scope (motives) We can infer that there's some overlap between good deeds and magnanimus behavior, but we can't infer what good deeds must be, nor do we have any info on motives that would let us make this inference.

    0% picked this

  2. Lack of magnanimity is the

    Trap

    Too Strong (most serious) / Unsupported Causal Relationship We have no info about the causes of most serious illnesses that would allow us to make this inference.

    1% picked this

  3. Magnanimous behavior can be regulated

    Unsupported Causal Relationship / Scope (brain chemicals)

    We have no info about what regulates magnanimous behavior or about brain chemicals that would allow us to make this inference.

    15% picked this

  4. Correct

    Magnanimity is beneficial to one’s

    Why this is right

    What do we know abouf Magnanimity? It stimulates immune cells and is an example of something good for your immune system. Is that enough to support that it's beneficial to our own interests? Sure. You need some common sense to connect the dots between benefiting your immune system and benefitting you and your interests, but sometimes we need a little common sense to make a Most Supported answer work.

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

    73% picked this

  5. The number of white blood

    Too Strong (radically) / Unsupported Causal Relationship

    We're told magnanimous behavior can stimulate the cells, but not that it could incerease the number of cells, and certainly not that it could do so radically if the behavior was consistent. That's too strong all around.

    11% picked this

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