Researchers compared the brains of recently deceased people who had schizophrenia with those of recently deceased peo...

FS101 on June 24, 2020

Logical reasoning - Section 1

shunhe on June 24, 2020

Hi @Sheikhd,

Thanks for the question! Yup, this is a must be true question; we can tell because we’re asked to find “the answer choice most strongly supported by the information above.” That kind of wording suggests it’s a must be true question.

So let’s take a look at what exactly is going on in this stimulus. We’re told that 35% of schizophrenic brains (compared to 0% of non schizophrenic brains) had damage to the subplate, a structure of nerve cells. And the researchers who figured this out also knew that this damage had to happen before the second fetal trimester, which is when the subplate controls the development of connections between different parts of the brain.

So we know this is a Must Be True question now, and we look at the answer choices to see what’s supported. Take a look at 9E), which tells us that there may be a cause of schizophrenia that predates birth. The language here is pretty weak (“may be”) which is a good sign, since wishy-washy sentences are easier to support. And indeed, it could be true that a cause of schizophrenia predates birth. Maybe this damage to the subplate is a cause of schizophrenia. We don’t know for sure, we don’t know for sure that it’s not. But we do know it’s a possibility. And we know that this does predate birth, since it occurs before the second fetal trimester (in other words, it happens to the fetus before birth). And so (E) is going to be most strongly supported by the passage here, and is the correct answer choice.

(C), on the other hand, talks about damage to the brain subplate AFTER the second fetal trimester, whereas we know that the damage in the stimulus had to happen BEFORE the second fetal trimester. We also don’t know for sure that this damage caused the schizophrenia. (C) isn’t as well supported for both of these reasons, and is incorrect.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.