PrepTest 135, Section 2, Question 21
A good way to get over one's fear(48 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the argument(11 more words not shown)
- Atakes for granted(21 more words not shown)
- Bneglects to consider(13 more words not shown)
- Ctakes for granted(14 more words not shown)
- Dfails to take(19 more words not shown)
- Eoverlooks the possibility(14 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The people who hated their first jump might never have made a second one.
Imagine two first-time parachutists. One finds it terrifying and never returns. The other enjoys it and keeps going. After ten jumps, the second person still isn't frightened. Comparing those two people wouldn't show that repetition cured a fear. It could simply show who chose to repeat the activity.
That's a possibility the numbers leave open. The ten-or-more group is rarely frightened now, but how frightened were its members at the start? We aren't given a before-and-after comparison showing those people's fear declined. Instead, we compare repeat participants with people who have parachuted only once.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw question, I want that selection problem: people who weren't very scared initially may be the ones who kept parachuting. Whether it's wise to undertake a dangerous activity is a separate concern. Here, we're questioning whether repeated participation actually accounts for the lower fear.
Working the answers
- A
This concerns doing a greater number of dangerous activities and then being less frightened by any one of them. The argument concerns repeating the same activity. Going parachuting, mountain climbing, and bull riding isn't the same claim as becoming less frightened of parachuting through repeated jumps. A doesn't capture the problem in the comparison given.
- B
Information about people with two through nine jumps might be useful, but their omission isn't the central problem. Even a gradual difference across those groups could arise because more frightened people stop sooner. We need to examine who keeps participating, not merely fill in the middle of the table.
- C
The argument doesn't require that people can know an activity is frightening only after trying it. Someone might anticipate fear beforehand and still try it. The mistake concerns why the repeat participants report less fear, not how anyone first learns an activity can be scary.
- D
People might be better off avoiding some terrifying activities. That wouldn't determine whether repetition reduces fear. The argument recommends repetition as a way to overcome fear; the flaw in its evidence is the possible difference between the two groups before repeated participation.
- ECorrect
Most frequent parachutists might not have found it frightening even initially. In that case, their low current fear would not demonstrate an improvement caused by repetition. The author treats a difference between self-selected groups as evidence that repeatedly doing an activity gets people over a fear they already had.
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