Bethany: Psychologists have discovered a technique for replacing one's nightmares with pleasant dreams, and have suc...

Mehran on June 6, 2017

@ariella the conclusion here is, "Thus, psychologists should direct efforts toward identifying nightmare-prone children so that these children can be taught the technique for replacing their nightmares with pleasant dreams."

The support?

"Psychologists have discovered a technique for replacing one's nightmares with pleasant dreams, and have successfully taught it to adults suffering from chronic nightmares."

And . . .

"Studies have found that nightmare-prone children are especially likely to suffer from nightmares as adults."

This is a Strengthen Principle question, so we are looking for the principle that most helps strengthen this conclusion.

The problem with (B) is that it doesn't strengthen that "Psychologists SHOULD direct efforts toward identifying nightmare-prone children." Just because this technique can be successfully taught to a child, doesn't mean that psychologists should actually do it.

Notice (C), on the other hand, definitely does this.

(C) states, "Psychologists SHOULD do everything they can to minimize the number of adults troubled by chronic nightmares."

Hope that helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.

RyanSpencer on July 23, 2019

If we take the contra positive of the correct strengthen answer does that essentially weaken the argument? Will it do that for every strengthen question?

Ravi on July 23, 2019

@RyanSpencer,

Taking the contrapositive of the correct strengthen answer choice does
not weaken the argument because the contrapositive logically
equivalent to the original statement. Therefore, the contrapositive
will also strengthen the argument since it's logically equivalent to
the original statement. The contrapositive of a correct strengthen
answer choice will never weaken the argument because it's saying the
same thing that the original statement is saying.

Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any other questions!