The higher the level of certain vitamins and minerals

[TaoL266]

this is an assumption question, so "weakens the argument" is not a pertinent concept.

Hi Ron,

If this is a strengthen question. Can we say that B is right?

Since from the context of choice B, we might imagine that something inside the cigarette,when reacting with vitamins and minerals in food, helps people to improve their lung function, even better than the lung function nonsmokers have with comparable diets. Then, we have some reason to believe that the lung function of smokers with more vitamins and minerals in their food is better than the lung function of smokers without such vitamins and minerals in food.

However, in an Find Assumption issue, this statement is not necessary, which means that it should not to be ture to come up to the conclusion. As far as I am concerned, this statement goes too far away for us to get the final conclusion since if we reverse it, "the lung function of smokers whose diets are rich in those vitamins and minerals is generally worse than that of nonsmokers with comparable diets" does not help us to make any judgement on the final conclusion.

In addtion, Find assumption right answers , in most cases, are associated with negative sentences, which exclude the situations that might undermine the relationship between premise and conclusion.

So I think that, as an assumption issue, I will definitely go for the choice E, while B could be a potential answer if it is a Strengthen question.

Is that right?

Thanks & Best regards.
Tony

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

It's interesting to dissect arguments as part of your review process, so I commend your question. And, yes, I agree that answer B strengthens the argument. Think of three groups: smokers who take lots of vitamins and minerals (group X), non-smokers who take lots of vitamins and minerals (group Y), and regular smokers (Z). According to answer B, group X has better lung function than group Y. And according to the initial argument, group Y has a better lung function than group Z, so putting both together, group X has better lung function than group Z.

Of course, it's not a perfect argument and still has weaknesses. It could be explained by what you put forward, that the cigarettes somehow, implausibly, help lung function (at this point it's worth noting that GMAT problems tend to follow conventional beliefs). However, it could just be a correlation / causation issue, explained by something like the members of group X smoking special medicinal cigarettes or something like that.

[TaoL266]

It's interesting to dissect arguments as part of your review process, so I commend your question. And, yes, I agree that answer B strengthens the argument. Think of three groups: smokers who take lots of vitamins and minerals (group X), non-smokers who take lots of vitamins and minerals (group Y), and regular smokers (Z). According to answer B, group X has better lung function than group Y. And according to the initial argument, group Y has a better lung function than group Z, so putting both together, group X has better lung function than group Z.

Of course, it's not a perfect argument and still has weaknesses. It could be explained by what you put forward, that the cigarettes somehow, implausibly, help lung function (at this point it's worth noting that GMAT problems tend to follow conventional beliefs). However, it could just be a correlation / causation issue, explained by something like the members of group X smoking special medicinal cigarettes or something like that.

Sage, thanks for your explanation.

The reason why I want to go more deeply to see the question is that I sometimes have trouble between Strengthen and Find Assumption questions. Those choices (the right answer and the tempting ones) are sometime too subtle for me to single out the right one, cause both of the choices will "positively" lead to the conclusion in the paragraph( just like the choice I have mentioned above).

Therefore, I'm just training myself to be much more sensitive about the question types, especially the two types I mentioned above, hoping that will be helpful.

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

That makes sense. Remember that an assumption is something the argument needs to work, whereas a strengthener is just anything that helps the argument to work. My way of explaining this in class is to take the simple example:

Premise: All boys like chocolate.
Conclusion: Sam likes chocolate.

You can see that the assumption here is that Sam is a boy. We need that to make the argument work; without it, the argument falls apart. However, if I told you that Sam is my brother, the argument also works; Sam is my brother strengthens the argument, but it's not essential for the argument to work, meaning that it's not an assumption.

[TaoL266]

Sage, thanks a lot for your quick reply

This is an awesome example and helps me a lot, simple but easy to distinguish the differences between the two type of questions.

BR
Tony

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]