Doctor: Research shows that adolescents who play video games on a regular basis are three times as likely to develop carpal tunnel syndrome as are adolescents who do not play video games. Federal legislation that prohibits the sale of video games to minors would help curb this painful wrist condition among adolescents.

The doctor’s conclusion depends on which of the following assumptions?

A) The majority of federal legislators would vote for a bill that prohibits the sale of video games to minors.
B) Not all adolescents who play video games on a regular basis suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome.
C) Playing video games is the only way an adolescent can develop carpal tunnel syndrome.
D) Most parents would refuse to purchase video games for their adolescent children.
E) The regular playing of video games by adolescents does not produce such beneficial effects as better hand-eye coordination and improved reaction time.

The answer to the above question as per MGMAT is D. I understand why A, B and E are incorrect however, I am not sure why C is incorrect.

A) Incorrect because voting for the bill is out of scope
B) This sort of weakens the conclusion
E) Again, out of scope

Coming to C and D,
C) I picked C as the correct answer because the conclusion says "Federal legislation that prohibits the sale of video games to minors would help curb this painful wrist condition among adolescents" My thinking was that if the legislation is only addressing videogames, however if there are other ways of getting carpal tunnel, then the legislation against videogames alone is not going to curb the condition amongst. If we eliminated alternate modes of causation of the syndrom, it would support and strengthen the conclusion.

D) The parents of children are never mentioned in the passage, isn't it out-of-scope to bring them into the picture. In addition, we have no idea if parents are buying the videogames, the children themselves might be buying the games for themselves.

Please explain why D is correct and not C. Thanks

Hello There!

C is incorrect because of the following reasons:
1. Nowhere in the paragraph does the author stated that he believes that video games is the ONLY way adolescents can develop CT syndrome.
2. He states "...will help curb...". He did not say that the ban will completely curb the CT syndrome. From this we can infer that he is
NOT assuming that banning will completely curb CT syndrome => NOT assuming that video games is the only source of CT syndrome.

So, C is not his assumption.

D makes sense because, banning sale to adolescents doesnt mean that they wont be able to access them. He is assuming that there is no other way adolescents can access them (like parents buying them)

HTH! This is my first post and have been inspired by the quality of the replies in this forum.

that's true, but, unfortunately, it's irrelevant to this problem.

the problem is not asking for a consideration that would strengthen the conclusion if true; it's asking for an assumption that is REQUIRED by the conclusion. that means an assumption without which the argument would completely fall apart!

i think you can see that choice c, while indeed strengthening the argument, is by no means REQUIRED for the argument to stick together.



nope - you're missing the entire point of the legislation, which would prohibit children from buying the games for themselves.

this argument REQUIRES the assumption that, IF children are prohibited from buying the games, THEN the games will not fall into the children's hands. that assumption requires that we presume that the children's parents (along with all other adults) won't buy the games and give them to the children, thus obviating the point of the legislation.

Actually I chose A because just because there exists a bill doesnt mean that it will become a law. Actually there are too many assumptions in this question.

1.Bill gets passed.
2. Bill turns into law
3. Law is enforced

hmm, interesting point.
i guess you're right, actually; we should probably edit the question so that this becomes a non-issue. thanks for pointing it up.

btw, make sure that you understand what makes (d) correct in this problem, as that is the type of reasoning that will actually show up in official problems.
while you are entirely correct that legislators need to actually vote for the bill for it to become law, that's too ha-ha-gotcha-tricky for an official problem. (although the cr arguments are sometimes convoluted, they will NEVER rely on this sort of legerdemain.)

I agree that the bill would have to get passed in order for it to become a law.

A couple of other things I wanted to clear up. First, a poster said that there are "too many" assumptions in this question - I'm not sure if you meant "too many" in the sense that you thought there should only be one, but there are often 3 (or even more!) possible assumptions in a question. The correct answer does not have to address all assumptions; it only has to address one. The correct answer also doesn't have to make the conclusion a "slam-dunk" (definitely going to happen); it just has to make it somewhat more likely because ONE assumption has been called out.

Another poster asked whether D was out of scope because the argument never mentions parents. Most correct assumption answers work in this way: a new premise is offered and that premise makes explicit something that is assumed by the author. In other words, a new piece of information is being presented. It's not enough to say "there's some word here that wasn't mentioned in the argument, so it's out of scope" because the right answers often do have something new that wasn't explicitly mentioned in the argument!

_________________
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director of Online Community
ManhattanGMAT