LR Question 1 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Physician: In itself, exercise does not cause heart attacks…
QUESTION TYPE: Sufficient Assumption
CONCLUSION: The new health program will cause increased health risks for employees.
REASONING: A rapidly increased amount of exercise increases anyone’s risk of a heart attack.
ANALYSIS: The stimulus doesn’t tell us how hard people will exercise in the new program. It’s only sudden, increased exercise that causes an increased risk of heart disease.
___________
- CORRECT. This tells us that the exercise program is intense enough to cause an increase in heart disease risk.
- This doesn’t necessarily mean much. It could be that both exercise programs are quite tame and involve less exercise than employees get outside of work.
- This doesn’t tell us if there will be a sudden increase in exercise for those employees. It’s only a sudden increase that it harmful.
- A sudden change in policy is not the same thing as a sudden increase in exercise.
- This doesn’t tell us if the new program is strenuous or not.
More Resources for Sufficient Assumption Questions
- Conditional Reasoning Article: Learn about conditional statements.
- LR Diagrams Guide: Learn how to draw LR diagrams.
- Intro to Conditional Reasoning: Learn conditional reasoning basics.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Sufficient Assumption questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers sufficient assumption questions.
Can B be wrong because there is no mention of a previous health program as well?
I’d argue that the mention of the previous health program is pretty irrelevant to why this answer choice is incorrect. I can imagine scenarios where the previous health program was mentioned in an answer choice, and that answer choice was correct. For example, if the answer choice said something like “the new health program ensures a sudden increase in the amount of exercise for all employees in the previous health program,” that answer choice would be a very good one because it mentions the key to responding to this question: a sudden increase in the amount of exercise.