Q21 - Prolonged exposure to sulfur fumes permanently

[cwolfington]

How is B incorrect?

[ohthatpatrick]

How does (A) Weaken the argument? (Try to include your thought process in your question so that we can give you a better answer)

Question Type: Weaken EXCEPT

Task: Eliminate the four answers that weaken the argument (select the one answer that is irrelevant or strengthens)

Argument Core:

Conc -
prolonged exposure to sulfur permanently damages one's sense of smell

why?
Prem -
Study (100 sulfur workers vs. 100 other workers ... sulfur workers were less able to identify scents of foods, spices, flowers, etc.)

How might we Weaken this?

I typically start with important terms from the Conclusion and make sure they've been properly established in the Evidence or Linked to it.

How do we know these factory workers have suffered PERMANENT exposure?

How do we know that the sulfur workers have actually had PROLONGED exposure to sulfur fumes?

But I would also anticipate LSAT's usual bag of tricks in weakening an argument based on a Study / Explanation / Causality
- unrepresentative samples
- poor methodology
- anything else that suggests an alternative explanation for the study results / points to another significant difference between the two groups

(A) Hmmm, this doesn't seem to do much. Sure the chemical replacements weren't perfect, but that's an incredibly high standard. Plus, even if they were less than perfect, we still have to figure out why the sulfur workers did so much worse than the other workers. This brings up an attribute of the study that equally affects both groups. Keep it, this is probably the answer.

(B) This weakens by pointing to a significant difference between the two groups. If you took a smell test somewhere where there are heavy sulfur fumes hanging in the air (as the sulfur workers did), then OF COURSE it's hard to identify scents. All you can smell is the sulfur! That doesn't prove the sulfur workers have had their sense of smell damaged ... it just shows that the sulfur overpowered the scents that were being tested. Eliminate.

(C) Significant difference between the two groups! The control group was already good at this task ... they've been primed to perform better at this task by having previous experience with it.

(D) Alternative cause! Maybe the sulfur workers perform worse because some OTHER noxious fume at their work has damaged their sense of smell. Eliminate.

(E) Significant difference between the two groups! The sulfur workers aren't even familiar with some of the scents being tested, so they wouldn't be able to successfully identify them, whether or not their sense of smell had been damaged.

(A) is the correct answer. The easiest way to "feel" how it's different from all the others is to see that it points out a "sameness", whereas all the correct answers point out a DISTINCTION between the sulfur workers and the control group.

Hope this helps.

[yisiyu123]

(B) This weakens by pointing to a significant difference between the two groups. If you took a smell test somewhere where there are heavy sulfur fumes hanging in the air (as the sulfur workers did), then OF COURSE it's hard to identify scents. All you can smell is the sulfur! That doesn't prove the sulfur workers have had their sense of smell damaged ... it just shows that the sulfur overpowered the scents that were being tested. Eliminate.

But isn't the first sentence said PROLONGED exposure?

[maria487]

I mistakenly chose A. I think A would be a fine answer choice if the answer was not comparative; if it was just about the factory workers, then if you said that the chemicals did not fully correspond to their natural scents, I think that would qualify as an error of the study. However, as Patrick noted, it is important to keep in mind that this question is comparative. If both groups were subject to close but not perfect scents, then they are both affected by it. For A to be correct, you'd need to insert the assumption that the factory workers were affected by this more than the control group.

Lesson learned: for comparative questions, the answer frequently lies in comparing the conditions between the 2 groups.

[rhkwk1441]

I see that A is correct but I am still not comfortable eliminating B.
First of all, we don't know if sulfur has a scent. In my opinion, workers not being able to identify scents because sulfur overshadows everything is an assumption that we are making. (so the assumption is that sulfur has a strong scent)

[Camiller]

Hey Patrick, I'm struggling to understand how (C) weakens the argument and how (A) does not. I feel as if (C) requires a number of assumptions in order for it to weaken the argument.

My issues with (C) are:

1. (C) is not a comparative statement, which means that it leaves open the possibility that most members of the other group have the same characteristic (prior participation). There is a significant difference between (C) and (E); (E) is a comparative statement, which does point out a significant difference between the two groups.
2. I do not feel as if (C) gives any indication that these members gained some form of advantage in the study with the factory workers, so I feel as if it is a superfluous assumption. In order to assume this, I feel as if you must assume that these individuals were exposed to scents that were then re-used in the study with the factory workers. If, for example, all of the previous studies involved the identification of household cleaner scents, and if the study with the factory workers involved the identification of foods, spices, flowers, etc. (no household cleaner scents), how does this result in an advantage for these members? Being exposed to bleach doesn't help you identify the scent of chili. (C) only asserts that most members of the control group participated in earlier studies that involved "the identification of scents."—which is why I feel as if this is a superfluous assumption.


On the other hand, (A) directly points out a potential problem with the methodology.