The formation of hurricanes that threaten the United States mainland is triggered by high atmospheric winds off the w...

shunhe on July 9, 2020

Hi @sydneygrube,

Thanks for the question! So this one isn’t necessarily one that you have to diagram out, though I suppose you could if you wanted to. But the basic idea is that abundant rainfall in sub-Saharan Africa will come before hurricanes hitting the US a lot. And the argument then concludes that the abundant rains must therefore somehow promote the ability of the winds to form hurricanes; in other words, the abundant rains in sub-Saharan Africa are causing the hurricanes in some form or another. So this is going to be a classic correlation vs. causation issue in the stimulus, and we should look for an answer choice that has that same kind of flaw. Taking a look at (C), we see that it makes the same mistake. (C) tells us that people who later become successful entrepreneurs played competitive sports, so playing competitive sports must enhance a person’s entrepreneurial ability (and thus in part cause them to become a successful entrepreneur). But there might be a third trait that causes both or some other explanation; again, we assume causation when we see correlation, and this is why (C) is the correct answer choice.

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

sydneygrube on July 12, 2020

This really helped! Thanks!

shunhe on July 13, 2020

Glad to help!