Logical reasoning PrepTest 152 · Section 2 · Question 18

Incorrect. There's no conditional language in the premises (even the correlation is stated as what is "[t]ypically" true), so the argument doesn't feature a conditional logic flaw.

Incorrect. The conclusion is that disease must be a cause of high blood pressure, not that anyone with disease X will have high blood pressure, so the argument doesn't ignore the possibility that other factors could stop someone with disease X from having high blood pressure.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Errors in Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
A protein is positively correlated with blood pressure. Disease X raises that protein level, so Disease X causes high blood pressure.

Answer Anticipation:
"[T]he higher . . . the higher" is classic correlation language. And while the argument does have a causal premise—X causes the protein level to go up—it assumes that the protein level going up will cause high blood pressure to increase. However, that correlation between higher protein levels and higher blood pressure isn't causal, so there's no indication that disease X, by increasing the protein level, will cause higher blood pressure. That correlation/causation flaw should show up in the correct answer—either by directly stating that the argument jumps from a correlation to causation, or by pointing out the potential for an alternative cause or reversed causality. The last one, in particular, does tend to show up in correct answers when a correlation/causation flaw has a medical topic—here, there's no reason to think that high blood pressure couldn't cause the level of the protein to go up instead of the other way around.

Answer Explanation:
This answer directly states the correlation/causation flaw present in the stimulus. Higher levels of protein A and higher blood pressure are correlated, and the argument assumes from that that protein A causes high blood pressure.

Key Takeaway:
Easier Errors in Reasoning questions will have a set of answer choices that all talk about different flaws, and so if you spot the correct flaw, finding the answer is more straightforward than in these harder ones. As we see here, the harder ones feature multiple answers that use language referencing the flaw from the stimulus (here, (B), (C), (D), and (E) all reference causality). Know the different types of causal flaws and what their answers sound like so you can quickly select the right answer and eliminate the wrong ones!

Incorrect. Tricky! This answer sounds like it's raising the possibility of reversed causality. However, what it's actually saying is that the argument establishes a causal relationship and then treats it as if the reverse were true. In other words, this answer says the argument reverses causality instead of ignores the possibility that it might have the causality reversed.

Incorrect. The argument, if anything, assumes that a cause of a cause is a causal factor in the effect.