PrepTest 132

Incorrect. The researchers found no correlation between arthritis pain and weather events, so it wouldn't be logical to conclude that anyone is affected, let alone at different rates.

Incorrect. To be true, the sufferers would need to believe that different causes result in different intensities. E.g., exercise has a different effect than rain, which has a different effect than earthquakes, etc . . . There's no indication that's the case.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Argument Completion

Stimulus Summary:
A study was done to see if weather affects arthritis pain. They didn't find one. The people in the study gave a variety of accounts as to how long it was before the arthritic pain and the weather event. Therefore, __________.

Strategy Overview:
The correct answer choice serves as a logical completion to the stimulus. Also a subcategory of Must Be True question.

Answer Anticipation:
The researchers are noted to have failed to find a correlation between pain and rain, so we should head into the answers under the belief that this connection is dubious at best.

From there, the stimulus discusses the specific beliefs of the arthritis sufferers as far as when they felt pain versus when the weather event happened, and they gave varying answers. This suggests that any link between weather and pain is just in these people's heads, as no correlation was found and there wasn't little commonality between the predictions made.

Answer Explanation:
The lack of a correlation, coupled with varying reports on time delay, suggests that there is no relationship between weather and arthritis. As such, all of the people who felt that they could predict the weather based on joint pain must be imagining that connection.

Key Takeaway:
The correct answer here is a little stronger than we're used to selecting in a question type where we're asked to make inferences or draw conclusions based on premises. However, in this case, the premises themselves include strong language (ñtried but failed to find any correlation,î ñwidely varying accountsî), so a stronger conclusion can be supported.

Incorrect. The stimulus suggests that potentially no one's arthritis pain is affected by the weather since no correlation was found between the two.

Incorrect. This study was a scientific investigation of possible links between weather and arthritis pain, so it's definitely not impossible to do such a study.