PrepTest 103, Section 1, Question 8
Based on data collected from policyholders, life insurance(58 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(8 more words not shown)
- ASome people would(15 more words not shown)
- BLife insurance companies(17 more words not shown)
- CThe tables include(19 more words not shown)
- DHolders of life(13 more words not shown)
- EPeople's efforts to(21 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Changing your weight isn't automatically the same as having been at that weight all along.
The table tells us that one group of policyholders lived longer than another. The conclusion goes further: people outside the listed range can improve their life expectancy by moving into it. Maybe that's true, but the comparison doesn't tell us what happens when someone makes that change.
What if some past health damage can't be undone simply by changing weight? That is a possible objection, not a medical claim we need to establish. It illustrates why we can't just transfer the longer life expectancy of one group to everyone who later joins it.
What we’re looking for
We're asked for a required assumption. My initial prediction is that the argument needs the change in weight to be capable of producing the claimed improvement. It can't take that benefit for granted just because people already within the range lived longer.
Working the answers
- A
Whether people are willing to make the change is separate from what would happen if they made it. The conclusion is conditional: if people modify their weight to fall within the range, their life expectancy will improve. That claim doesn't require either willingness or unwillingness among the people affected.
- B
The companies' purpose in creating the tables doesn't determine whether changing weight would extend anyone's life. They could have assembled the data for their own business decisions, and the proposed health benefit could still exist. An intention to provide guidance isn't required for the argument's inference.
- C
The argument doesn't require the tables to include deaths from accidents. It could make the same comparison using people who died from natural causes alone. Nor does including some accidental deaths automatically erase the observed difference. The assumption we need concerns the benefit of changing weight, not this particular mix of causes of death.
- D
The policyholders don't have to live no longer than the general population. Even if insured people lived longer on average, changing weight might still improve life expectancy within the groups being discussed. This broad comparison between insured people and everyone else doesn't provide a required link between weight modification and the claimed improvement.
- ECorrect
This raises a different problem from our initial concern about lasting damage: what if the effort to change weight itself harms people enough to shorten their lives? Imagine someone reaches the listed range through a dangerous, extreme regimen. Reaching the target would not establish the promised benefit if the method leaves that person worse off overall.
The argument needs to rule out that outcome. It doesn't need weight modification to have zero risks or unpleasant effects. It needs those efforts not to damage health enough to decrease overall life expectancy, because the conclusion promises an increase.
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