"Surprising" Phenomenon
Why would the cholesterol of someone taking the medication be typically higher than the average cholesterol of someone in that person’s age group even though the medication is effective in lowering cholesterol?
Objective
The correct answer should tell us about a difference between people who take the medication and people who don’t that might explain why people who take the medication have higher average cholesterol despite the medication’s effectiveness. For example, maybe people who take the medication start off with above average cholesterol, which could be why the take the medication in the first place. Or maybe people who take the medication engage in cholesterol-increasing activities that the average person does not.
A
A recently developed cholesterol-lowering medication is more effective than the medication described above.
A new, different drug has no impact if we have no reason to think that the average person takes that new drug.
B
Another medication is prescribed to treat high cholesterol just as often as the medication described above is.
A different drug has no impact if we have no reason to think that the average person takes that new drug. Even if we did know that the average person takes a different drug, we don’t know that the different drug is more effective at decreasing cholesterol.
C
In most cases, people with high cholesterol levels are not treated with drug therapy but are put on restrictive low-cholesterol diets.
What happens to most people with high cholesterol doesn’t matter, because we’re trying to explain a discrepancy concerning people who are on the cholesterol-reducing drug.
D
The medication described above is usually prescribed only for people whose cholesterol level is at least 30 percent above the average for their age group.
This tells us people given the medication typically start with cholesterol significantly higher than average. That’s why the drug, even though it helps reduce cholesterol, does not bring the drug-takers’ cholesterol level down to the average person’s cholesterol level.
E
Within the population as a whole, approximately the same number of people have relatively high cholesterol levels as have relatively low cholesterol levels.
The specific number of people with high or low cholesterol does not affect average cholesterol levels of people who take the medication or average cholesterol levels of people who don’t take the medication.
Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
The psychologist concludes that physiological functions alone cannot explain the phenomenon of dreaming. As support for her conclusion, the psychologist cites the fact that dream content varies enormously. This psychologist disagrees with other psychologists, who conclude that dreams are purely physiological and reveal nothing about the dreamer’s character.
Identify Argument Part
The claim in the question stem is a premise that supports the psychologist’s conclusion and casts doubt on the conclusion of the other psychologists (who believe that dreams can be explained purely in physiological terms).
A
It is used to support the anti-Freudian conclusion that some psychologists draw concerning dreams.
The anti-Freudian conclusion is the view of other psychologists; that is not the conclusion of this argument. Our psychologist disagrees with the anti-Freudian conclusion. The claim in the question stem supports our psychologist’s conclusion, not the view of other psychologists.
B
It is used to support the explicitly stated conclusion that a fully satisfactory account of dreams must allow for the possibility of their revealing significant information about the dreamer.
The conclusion mentioned in (B) may be implied but it is not the psychologist’s explicit conclusion; the psychologist just concludes that physiological explanations of dreams are incomplete. The conclusion mentioned in (B) is not explicitly stated.
C
It is used to suggest that neither Freud’s theory nor the theory of anti-Freudian psychologists can completely explain the phenomenon of dreaming.
The claim in the question stem is used to demonstrate that the anti-Freudian theory is incomplete, but it is not used to suggest anything regarding the completeness of the Freudian theory.
D
It is used to illustrate the difficulty of providing a complete explanation of the phenomenon of dreaming.
The difficulty of explaining dreaming is not a consideration of the argument; we only learn about one method of explaining dreams that is incomplete. The psychologist is not arguing that anything is difficult.
E
It is used to undermine a claim that some psychologists use to argue against a view of Freud’s.
The claim in the question stem undermines the claim that physiological explanations are enough to explain the phenomenon of dreaming; this endorsement of physiological explanations is what some psychologists use to argue against Freud’s theory.