Which of the following most logically completes the argument??
When people engage in activities that help others ,their brain releases endorphins,
the brain’s natural opiates, which induce in people a feeling of well-being. It has
been suggested that regular release of endorphins increases people’s longevity.
And a statistic on adults who regularly engage in volunteer work helping others
shows that they live longer, on average, than adults who do not volunteer. However,
that statistic would be what we would expect even if volunteering does not
boost longevity, because .
A. in the communities studied, women were much more likely to do regular
volunteer work than men were, and women tend to live longer than men do.
B. the number of young adults who do regular volunteer work is on the increase
C. the feelings of well-being induced by endorphins can, at least for a time, mask
the symptoms of various conditions and diseases, provided the symptoms are
mild.
D. it is rare for a person to keep up a regular schedule of volunteer work throughout
his or her life.
E. Some people find that keeping a commitment to do regular volunteer work
becomes a source of stress in their lives.


Thanks and Regards,
Amit

Whats the OA ? and what difficulty are u facing !!!

OA is A for this one.....

I am facing problem understanding this sentence "However,
that statistic would be what we would expect even if volunteering does not
boost longevity, because....."

although i think answer should be B for this one....

Please explain

Regards,
Amit

Please help me with this one......I am really not able to understand this CR.....please advise

Regards,
Amit

Hi Amit,

B isn't correct because the fact that there is an increase in the number of young people has no bearing on life expectancy. The final sentence "However, the statistic would be what we would expect even if volunteering does not boost longevity, because..." is asking us to find a reason why people in the study might live longer even if the premise that volunteering increases longevity is not true.

Of the answers provided:
B states nothing about longevity
C provides a reason why longevity would be shorter, not longer
D provides no information why people who do not volunteer would have increased longevity
E implies evidence contrary to the paragraph's conclusion (ie, that stress would reduce longevity)

So finally, A, which states that women live longer than men (whether they volunteer or not), and in the studies conducted, there were more women volunteers than there were men volunteers. Therefore, even if volunteering itself does not boost longevity, the fact that there were more women volunteers would lead to the statistic that volunteers have better longevity than non-volunteers. Putting it in more mathematical terms: w= women, m=men, and assume women live 80 years and men 70. If the study had 2/3 women, then the average longevity would be 2/3(80) + 1/3(70) = 76.67, vs the general population (assumed to be 50% men and 50% women) longevity of 75. Hope this helps!

A

basically, here's what going on here.

* the passage has noticed a CORRELATION between volunteerism and long life.

* the passage is questioning the notion that volunteerism CAUSES longer life.

takeaway:
in any passage that takes CORRELATION and concludes CAUSATION, that connection can be destroyed if either:
(a) the causation actually runs the other way around (i.e., the passage concludes that X causes Y, but in actuality Y causes X);
(b) the two correlated things are both results of some third, not considered, confounding factor.

as an example of (b):
there is a strong correlation between the # of churches and the # of murders in american cities: the more churches, the more murders.
however, there is no causation at work here (churches don't cause murders, and murders don't cause the building of churches), because both of these factors are caused by a third factor: the SIZE of the city. (IE larger cities have both more churches and more murders.)

--

in this case, the sex of the volunteers is the "third, not considered, thing" that destroys the hypothesis of causal connection between volunteerism and long life.

hope that helps.

Thankyou Ron for the valuable advise on this question.

However, i found your explanation too technical.....is there a way to understand the problem from a different perspective as I am still not very confident on such problem.

Also what isthe probabality of such questions popping up in the exam?

and to which part of the critical reasoning these questions are based on?

Pleaes advise...

Thanks and Regards,
Amit

Dear RonPurewal,

I have understood the solution to this question well. However, according the MGMAT strategy guides, the cause-effect rules you've mentioned under 'takeaways' are demonstrated in "finding the assumption question type"

And since this is not a finding the assumption question, does it mean that we can apply those rules to other question types as well?

Please confirm.

Thanks,
Jigar

philanderer.lover,

Let me try and help you with my perspective:

If I may break down the question into simple steps:

1) helping ppl -> release of endorphins -> feeling of well-being

2) regular release of endorphins -> longevity

3) stat show- adults with regular voluntary work -> live longer ON AVERAGE than adults not involved in voluntary work


Now the confusing part, "However, that statistic would be what we would expect even if volunteering does not boost longevity, because "

In simple words: stats hold true even without step (2) being true.. ie. regular adult volunteers live longer than adult non-volunteers EVEN without the endorphins being released ... HOW???

the ans to HOW is what we have to find. ie. an alternate cause to longevity of adult volunteers over adult non-volunteers.

option (A) provides us that alternate solution - It says that on average, women live longer than men and are more likely to be involved in voluntary work.

IE even without the help from endorphin release, volunteers (women) live longer than non-volunteers (men)

As for the probability of such questions in GMAT, I have no clue..

Hope this "helps" as I m already getting the "well-being" feeling from endorphin release ;-)

Jigar

Thank you jigar.... i got this one now....between is there any specific rules for such questions and in what categories these questions fall in.....it seems to me like a weaken question....please advise

Regards,
Amit

I think it's a 'weaken the conclusion' question..

this is basically a "weaken the conclusion" question, in a heavy cloak.

notice the question prompt:


this is functionally equivalent to "weaken the conclusion that volunteering boosts longevity".

notice that "weaken the conclusion" questions usually involve UNDERMINING ASSUMPTIONS.
in that light, most insights into "find the assumption" questions are also valuable in considering "weaken the conclusion" questions.

Ron: The second part of option a says "and women tend to live longer than men do".

Should this understood as "In the communities studied, women were much more likely to do regular volunteer work--but, all women, even the ones outside of that community tend to live longer than men do".

To enliven the analogy--let's say that the test was conducted in Japan. A guy said, "Japanese women do more volunteer work, than Japanese men do, and that causes them (Japanese Women) to live longer".

Another guy responds, "But hey, I just checked the world stats on women mortality--all women, everywhere in the world, tend to live longer than men. So you're right that Japanese women might do regular volunteer work, but to believe that the volunteer work is causing them to live longer is wrong. In fact, it is just a coincidence that Japanese women who live longer are involved in regular volunteer work."

This implies that the women studied in the community was just a coincidence, volunteer work or no volunteer work, women anyway live longer than men.

Please let me know if I am thinking in the right direction.

yep, that's the only way to interpret the statement.
the statement begins with "women tend to..."
that's an unqualified statement -- i.e., there are no adjectives/descriptive modifiers in front of "women", and there are no other words that narrow the possibilities -- so, by default, it applies to women in general.

this is functionally equivalent to "weaken the conclusion that volunteering boosts longevity".

notice that "weaken the conclusion" questions usually involve UNDERMINING ASSUMPTIONS.
in that light, most insights into "find the assumption" questions are also valuable in considering "weaken the conclusion" questions.


Thank you Ron,
I heard that there are 2 ways to weakens a conclusion. The first is to weaken an assumption. The second is to weaken the conclusion directly.

above question ilustrate the first. Can you give us an example of the second type of weakener? Thank you.