It is true of both men and women that those who marry as young adults live longer than those who never marry. This dose not show that marriage causes people to live longer, since, as compared with other people of the same age, young adults who are about to get married have fewer of the unhealthy habits that can cause a person to have a shorter life, most notably smoking and immoderate drinking of alcohol.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument above?

A. Marriage tends to cause people to engage less regularly in sports that involve risk of bodily harm.
B. A married person who has an unhealthy habit is more likely to give up that habit than a person with the same habit who is unmarried.
C. A person who smokes is much more likely than a nonsmoker to marry a person who smokes at the time of marriage, and the same is true for people who drink alcohol immoderately.
D. Among people who marry as young adults, most of those who give up an unhealthy habit after marriage do not resume the habit later in life.
E. Among people who as young adults neither drink alcohol immoderately nor smoke, those who never marry live as long as those who marry.

some say answer is D other say it is E ....

its a gmat prep question....
gmat says its D
but im unable to cancel out E

Maybe E is wrong because of the below e.g:
Suppose A and B are two young persons starting off with non vices when young.
A gets married and then picks up vices
B remains a bachelor and then picks up same vices at same age.
Both do not live, long because they only live "as long" as each other according to the option.

Also D stresses on the fact that you have to give up the vice to live longer which strengthens the argument that marriage has nothing to do with long life

A and B weaken the case
C is not relevant I think...
Maybe some expert can comment too...

Hi shalinibhatia15,

I initially picked E) as well, but now I think that E) actually weakens the argument.

E) says that if you do not drink and smoke excessively, you will live as long as those who marry. This claim implies that even though you have tons of other unhealthy habits such as sleep only one hour a day, as long as you do not drink excessively and smoke, you can still live as long as those who marry. Apparently this claim contradicts with the the evidence that "those about to get married have fewer unhealthy habits."

you should go back and check your answer key; the answer to this problem should be (e). not only is that the answer that makes the most sense, but it's also the answer reported for this problem on several other forums.

the purpose of the argument is to show that marriage DOES NOT extend one's life expectancy.
choice (e) is, in effect, the result of a controlled study: two groups of people are chosen who are identical in every aspect other than the variable under investigation (where "the variable under investigation", in this case, is marital status).
in this study, marital status is shown to be irrelevant to longer life expectancy. (the only difference between the two groups is that one of the groups gets married and the other group doesn't; therefore, if marriage increases life expectancy, then there should DEFINITELY be a difference in life expectancy between these two groups.)

choice (d) actually works against the argument, in two different ways.
first, the argument makes the point that the observed difference is due to behavioral differences that exist before marriage. by citing changes in behavior that occur after marriage, this answer choice actually weakens that premise of the argument.
second, since this choice describes behavioral changes that occur only after marriage, it actually supports the idea that marriage contributes positively to life expectancy -- which is the exact opposite of the idea put forward by the argument.

Thnaks thanks...i got it ...... Ron

Good catch Ron.

"very good catch"

thx