PrepTest 120

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen with Necessary Premise

Stimulus Summary:
Repressors - Heart rate goes up when in an emotional situation
Nonrepressors - Heart rate goes up when in an emotional situation and consciously repress emotions
Therefore - Repressing emotions causes heart rate increases

Answer Anticipation:
The conclusion here is explicitly causal, so we should start by considering a Correlation/Causation flaw. Looking at the premises, we are given correlations—between repressing emotions and the heart rate increase. As such, this argument has a Correlation/Causation flaw, and we should anticipate an answer because of it.

When a Strengthen with Necessary Premise question features a Correlation/Causation flaw, the correct answers tend to deal with alternatives. In short, they tend to rule out alternatives, since each alternative would need to be eliminated for the causality in the conclusion to hold.

We can head into the answers with that in mind, but we can also get a bit more specific here. When the stimulus suggests a specific alternative cause, it tends to be the one that's ruled out by the correct answer. Here, there's another potential cause that's shared by both situations—the emotional situation itself! If being confronted with such a situation raises heart rate regardless of whether emotional responses are repressed, then repressing emotions isn't the cause of the heart rate increase. Let's keep the broader anticipation in mind while looking for this specific answer.

Answer Explanation:
This answer rules out an alternative cause suggested by the stimulus—the emotional situation itself causing the response. If encountering such a situation is sufficient to increase heart rates, then the argument falls apart. Note that this answer applying to just the nonrepressors isn't a problem because it doesn't limit itself to that group. Emotional situations can't cause heart rate increases in either group, so it's necessary that it doesn't do so in each group individually.

Key Takeaway:
It's important to develop a sense of what types of answers show up in different question types when specific errors in reasoning are present. Here, we saw that in Strengthen with Necessary Premise questions that feature a Correlation/Causation flaw, the correct answer often rules out an alternative cause.

Incorrect. It doesn't matter how well the nonrepressors can inhibit certain things, just that they do and that it has a given effect.

Incorrect. Similar to (B), the relative levels of excitement (assuming that translates to heart rate) is not important to the argument as long as there is some increase in heart rate in both groups.

Incorrect. The argument is about inhibiting displays of emotion, not feeling such emotions.

Incorrect. Since the effect is an increase in heart rate, the starting point doesn't matter. Even if repressors tend to have a different average heart rate than nonrepressors, it could still go up in emotional situations.