Q24 - A recent study of 6,403

[syed_s_hus]

For this question I was able to get down to B and D. I choose B as the answer but I am not 100% sure why D is wrong. Can someone explain?

[ohthatpatrick]

I thought (D) was tempting, in that it's got the confusing language that typifies many correct Flaw answer choices.

But I was a little confused by what it's saying:
"the conclusion focused on X when it SHOULD have focused on Y".

Who's to say what a conclusion SHOULD have focused on?

Authors may present several facts and choose to make a certain conclusion, even if another conclusion would also be appropriate. There's not necessarily one, "correct" conclusion.

So part of what I think makes this answer wrong is that it implies that the argument had one particular conclusion it needed to reach, and I can't really think of any reason why an author SHOULD reach a certain conclusion.

But what really clinched eliminating (D) for me is that we're ALREADY told the relation between pravastatin and cholesterol levels: "one of the effects of pravastatin is to reduce cholesterol".

So why would we call out this author for failing to make a conclusion about the relation between pravastatin and cholesterol? He already told us the relation.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you had any reason why (D) would be right that I didn't address.

[WaltGrace1983]

I thought (D) was incredibly odd too. Is this just a completely whacky answer choice that I shouldn't worry too much about? I feel as though a prescriptive statement regarding where the argument - let alone something as specific as the conclusion - should have gone is just flat out craziness. Either way, (A) was a much better answer than adequately addressed the flaw so...

[WaltGrace1983]

Here is a top to bottom review.

People taking Drug P had 1/3 fewer heart attacks and 1/3 fewer deaths from heart disease than those not taking Drug P
+
Drug P reduces cholesterol
+
These findings are consistent with other studies, showing that people with heart disease have higher-than-average cholesterol***
→
Lowering cholesterol reduces the risk of heart disease

***One thing to note right here. I could be wrong - I hope not - but as soon as I read this premise, I immediately stopped putting the "study" at the forefront of my mind. A lot of times in a flaw, we get this infamous "study" that leads us to conclusion X and the correct answer choice will say something about how the study is not representative. Because the argument went out of its way to show that this "study" is "consistent" with a lot of other studies, I thought it gave more credibility to that study. Someone correct me if I am wrong for thinking this way but, as I said, I was drawn away from thinking about the flaw as a flaw with the study.

My immediate thinking was therefore about the correlation=causation statements. We know that drug P reduces cholesterol; we know that people taking drug P have less heart disease; we know that people with heart disease tend to have higher cholesterol. However, does this mean that lowering cholesterol reduces the risk of heart disease? Not exactly. Why? Because we don't know if it was the effect on cholesterol that led Drug P to its success. Maybe it was a placebo.

(A) Who cares about the side effects?

(B) This one looks good! Because this is a "fails to consider" statement, all we have to do is consider the idea and, if it leads the conclusion to not follow from the premises, we know its right! So let's say that "drug P reduces the risk of heart disease...but not as a consequence of its lowering cholesterol levels." Whoa! If this were true, how could we know that lower cholesterol levels is the way to reduce the risk of heart disease?!

(C) This might be a trap answer related to the validity of the study. However, we absolutely know that the data found in the specific study WAS the way the conclusion was drawn. No real problem here.

(D) Analysis is above.

(E) We absolutely don't need to consider this. We are only talking about the people who DO take Drug P and the possible effects cholesterol has on heart disease. No need to consider how widespread all of this stuff is!

[andreperez7]

I think a tip off in the language of the answer was that it stated that "one of the effects" was to reduce cholesterol. The stimulus then goes on to say that a reduction in cholesterol and a reduction in heart disease is consistent with other studies, thus, it is claimed this means lower cholesterol reduces heart diseases. The "one of the effects" means there are other effects as well, which could be the real cause.

Specifically, maybe the drug also has an effect of improving vascular health or the strength of veins or improves the nervous system that too could be why this medication reduces heart disease. In other words, one effect out of many was cholesterol reduction but maybe other effects of the medication are what are really bringing about less heart disease in the study.

So the moral of the story, I think, is just because one thing causes another does not mean it is the only thing that causes it.