A good way to get over one's fear of an activity one finds terrifying is to do it repeatedly. For instance, over half...

Naz on August 13, 2013

The conclusion of the argument is: "A good way to get over one's fear of an activity one finds terrifying is to do it repeatedly." The evidence given for this is to look at two groups of people. The first group is those who have parachuted only once. Of this group, over half said that they found the experience extremely frightening. The second group is made up of people who have parachuted ten times or more. Of the group less than 1% reported being frightened by parachuting.

The issue here is that these two groups do not necessarily need to overlap. It's possible that those who didn't initially find parachuting frightening decided to continue and parachute more times. In that case, the conclusion does not stand.

(A) is incorrect because we are not discussing many types of dangerous activities. We are trying to show why repeating the same activity multiple times may not be the way to overcome a fear.

(B) is incorrect because it doesn't matter what those in-between groups feel. The argument is not vulnerable on this point.

(C) is incorrect because the argument is not about knowing whether or not something is frightening.

(D) is incorrect because the argument is not about what would make people better off.

(E) is CORRECT because it restates the issue we discussed above. The two groups discussed do not have to be the same group. Therefore, we have not proven that those who had a fear, lost it through repetition.

Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions!