Logical reasoning PrepTest 124 · Section 3 · Question 9

Incorrect. The addictive chemicals aren't connected to kidney damage, so this answer is out of scope.

Incorrect. First, the argument doesn't establish or assume that the addictive elements of camellia tea are related to the kidney damage, so stating that they're not the cause of the kidney damage doesn't do anything to the argument. Second, this answer doesn't even rule out that possibility—these chemicals could cause the kidney damage, just not solely through their addictiveness.

Incorrect. What some people "claim" won't have an impact on the actual impact of consuming the tea. Also, there's no indication that stress and kidney damage are related. This answer is out of scope.

Incorrect. This answer is a trap based on a counterexample—it brings up people who have the cause but don't have the effect. However, as we noted in the Anticipation, since the argument only claims that camellia tea increases the risk of kidney damage, it considers the possibility that a solid majority of tea drinkers won't get kidney damage. All that the argument assumes is that significantly more people who drink the tea than don't end up with kidney damage. That could be 5% compared to 1%.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Weaken

Stimulus Summary:
Camellia tea is addictive, and it's correlated with kidney damage. Therefore, the tea increases risk of kidney damage.

Answer Anticipation:
Weaken questions frequently feature correlation/causation flaws, so any time you see a causal conclusion in one of these questions, that's where you should start.

Here, the conclusion states that drinking camellia tea "can result in" more risk of kidney damage—that's causal. Is it based on a correlation? Yep—those who regularly drink it "are more likely" to develop kidney damage.

So we have a correlation/causation flaw in a Weaken question, which means we should look for the common answers:
(1) ID an alternative cause
(2) Counterexamples (cause without effect; effect without cause)
(3) Reversed causality

Notes on each of these. IDing alternative causes is almost always in play, so there's a good chance we'll see an answer that falls into that category. And reversed causality does make sense here—if camellia tea can be used to treat kidney damage, then that would explain the correlation, with the kidney damage being the cause of the increased tea consumption.

Counterexamples, however, are frequently not likely to be the correct answer, and that applies here. This argument is statistical in nature—it doesn't state that drinking the tea universally causes kidney damage, but rather that it increases the risk of kidney damage. That increased might be from 1% in the general population to 4% in the camellia tea drinker population. If that's the case, then people who drink the tea but don't get kidney damage—those that would fall into a counterexample category—wouldn't actually hurt the relationship because 96% of heavy camellia tea drinkers wouldn't have kidney damage.

So let's head to the answers and focus on alternative causes and reversed causality.(One final note—the statement about withdrawal symptoms isn't related to the conclusion, so we should defer on any answer that deals with it. It could be correct if it connects those symptoms to kidney damage, but since that connection isn't established, it's more likely that that was thrown in to distract you.)

Answer Explanation:
This answer brings up alternative causes. If many who drink camellia tea also drink these other potential causes of kidney damage, that could account for the heightened correlation between the tea and the kidney damage.

Key Takeaway:
When a Weaken question has a correlation/causation flaw, there are three common answers;
(1) ID alternative causes
(2) Counterexamples
(3) Reversed causality

The second—counterexamples—shouldn't be considered in an argument that discusses the cause as a factor in the effect, or as increasing the risk of it, as that weaker causal connection assumes that not everyone who has the cause will also have the effect.