PrepTest 139

Incorrect. The premise explicitly establishes that aspirin can help to prevent heart disease.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Errors in Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
An aspirin a day lowers risk of heart disease, so most people in a nation would be healthier if they took an aspirin a day.

Answer Anticipation:
This argument definitely features causality, but it does so in the premises, so we aren't looking at a correlation/causation flaw! Be careful with viewing the presence of causality as establishing that flaw—causal premises can support a causal conclusion.

So what is the flaw here, then? Well, digging in, we see that taking an aspirin a day has a certain effect—it prevents or reduces the severity of heart disease. From that, the argument concludes that most people would be in better health if they took an aspirin a day.

That quantifier in the conclusion changes this into a statistical argument—can we really say that over 50% of people would be healthier taking an aspirin a day? That would require that over 50% of people have a significant risk of heart disease, which seems a bit high. Let's find an answer pointing this assumption out.

Answer Explanation:
This answer highlights the jump in the argument. Even if heart disease is very common, it may only afflict 15% of the population. If that's the case, then "most" people wouldn't benefit from taking an aspirin a day.

Key Takeaway:
Statistical language in the conclusion (including quantifiers) should be analyzed when present. What would need to be true for this to apply to "most" people?

Incorrect. In order to be in better health, one doesn't need to have the risk of all diseases lessened. If risk of heart disease goes down but risk of all other diseases stays the same, then one can still be said to be in better health.

Incorrect. The argument just states that an aspirin a day will lower the risk of heart disease, not that it'll lower it more than anything else, so this flaw isn't present.

Incorrect. The conclusion is specifically about most people "in such [industrialized] nations," so studies done just on that group would actually make it more representative.