Q8 - The year 1917, 1937, 1956,

[tzyc]

I thought there might be a flaw in the argument (though the question stem does not say so...) is causation and correlation so chose (C)...why is the answer (E)?

Thank you

[ohthatpatrick]

Well, first of all, there are some Match the Reasoning questions that actually do involve flawed arguments.

I assume you meant that the question stem didn't indicate "flawed" or "erroneous" reasoning, so you were expecting you'd be reading a logically sound paragraph.

NORMALLY, that is the case. But we do need to be on guard. There are a few examples of question stems such as Q8's that really act more like Match the Flaw questions.

There is definitely correlation/causality going on in this argument. However, the conclusion isn't really causally flawed since the author isn't SURE of himself. He's only committing to sunspot activity as likely being a factor .

Moreover, it's not JUST a correlation between years of sunspot activity and years of uprisings.

There actually is a premise that states that we know sunspots cause positive ions, and positive ions cause people to be anxious and irritable.

Essentially, the author is arguing:
more sunspot activity --> more pos. ions --> ppl are more anxious and irritable --> more uprisings.

So we do have to make the assumption that "being anxious and irritable" would make "popular uprisings" more likely, but that's not quite a correlation/causality flaw.

In terms of the Match the Reasoning task, I would be looking for these ingredients:
Conc: W was likely a factor in causing Z.
Premises:
i. W and Z are correlated
ii. W is known to cause X / X is known to cause Y.
(assumption: Y is pretty relevant to Z)

If you know your "Conclusion Shortcut" on Match the Reasoning questions, you shouldn't even bother reading (B), (C), or (D) (other than reading the conclusion and seeing that the answer choice is doomed).

We need a match for "W was likely a factor in causing Z".

(B)'s conclusion is "W must have been Z"

(C)'s conclusion is " if Z happens, W will have been the cause."

(D)'s conclusion is "W should be something people want."

If the conclusion of the answer choice doesn't match the type/strength of the original conclusion, the answer choice is hopeless.

How does (E) match up?
Conc: Corner offices (W) were probably a factor in causing Greater Productivity (Z).
i. correlation between W and Z
ii. Corner offices (W's) have more windows (X), windows/natural light (X) leads to more alertness (Y).
Assumption: Alertness (Y) is relevant to Greater Productivity (Z).

Hope this helps.

[mornincounselor]

I quickly eliminated B, C, D but went with A over B. Can someone help me see why A is wrong?

[ohthatpatrick]

Thanks for the post. I'm not sure why I forgot to explain (A) the first time.

As a reminder, this is what we're looking for

Conc: W was likely a factor in causing Z.
Premises:
i. W and Z are correlated
ii. W is known to cause X / X is known to cause Y.
(assumption: Y is pretty relevant to Z)

How does (A) stack up?
Conc:
W was likely a factor in causing Z
(some factor was probably affecting birds and events)

This is already different from the original, because the conclusion is saying that "some factor" was affecting two things: the birds and the events.

In the original argument's conclusion, we had a causal factor (sunspot) affecting ONE thing (uprisings).

In the original argument, the causal factor (sunspot) was correlated with something else (positive ions in the air) in the evidence.

In (A), is the causal factor (some factor) correlated with something else in the evidence?

No. We haven't even heard about this "some factor" until the conclusion.

The original argument told us stuff about sunspots in the evidence.

(A) tells us nothing about "some factor" in the evidence.

The argument in (A) is something more like this:

Ppl used X to predict Y.
Since the predictions were often correct,
we can conclude that some thing, Z, affected X and Y.