PrepTest 119, Section 4, Question 23
The fact that people who exercise vigorously are(29 more words not shown)
The reasoning in which one(13 more words not shown)
- AHaving strong verbal(25 more words not shown)
- BMusical and mathematical(35 more words not shown)
- CSince how people(34 more words not shown)
- DThe fact that(32 more words not shown)
- EThe fact that(22 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Maybe the healthier people exercise more because they're healthier in the first place.
When I hear that vigorous exercisers are sick less often, I can think of several possible explanations. Perhaps they also eat differently or differ in age. Those would be possibilities to investigate, not facts we've established. The author raises a more specific concern: a person's existing health partly determines whether that person exercises vigorously.
That makes sense. Someone who is already ill may be less able to exercise hard. So finding better health among vigorous exercisers doesn't, by itself, prove that the exercise produced their better health.
What we’re looking for
We need another argument using similar reasoning. Keep track of the proposed effect and the activity. The author questions whether the activity produces the favorable condition by pointing out that the condition already influences participation in the activity. And read each whole answer: its pieces may appear in a different order.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Strong verbal skills can encourage people to read more, just as good existing health can make vigorous exercise more likely. Habitual readers being verbally skilled matches vigorous exercisers being healthier.
The disputed conclusion also matches: reading produced the verbal skill, just as exercise supposedly produced the better health. In both cases, the favorable condition can help explain who does the activity in the first place. That is why the observed association doesn't prove the proposed effect.
A starts with the alternative explanation and ends with the claim it challenges. The original presents those pieces in a different order. That rearrangement doesn't change the reasoning.
- B
This discusses one underlying talent that can produce two skills. Its conclusion concerns whether someone lacking musical skill also lacks that talent. It doesn't challenge a claim that doing one activity created a favorable condition by showing that the condition encourages the activity. The roles and the inference are different.
- C
Friends' clothing choices may influence a person's own choice, so the choice needn't reveal that person's strongest preference. That's a distinction between choosing something and personally preferring it. We don't have the original relationship between an activity, a favorable condition, and the possibility that the condition explains participation.
- D
This is tempting because it also questions a causal explanation. Taller children perform better, and the answer suggests their greater playing time may explain the advantage. But notice the extra factor: practice.
To match the original more closely, we'd need basketball performance itself to help explain who becomes taller, just as preexisting health helps explain who exercises. D instead offers more frequent play as another explanation of performance. A matches the original relationship directly; D supplies a different possible cause.
- E
Similar symptoms don't prove identical causes. That is a sensible point, but it compares two effects and asks whether their causes must be the same. It doesn't give us an activity associated with a favorable condition, then show how the condition could encourage the activity.
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