Results of a survey conducted among ferry passengers on the North Sea showed that more of those who had taken anti-seasickness medication before their trip reported symptoms of seasickness than those who had no taken such medication.
From these results, the argument concludes that "Despite the claims by drug companies that clinical tests show the contrary, people would be better off not taking anti-seasickness medications."
But, what is the argument overlooking? What if those who did take the medication would have had much worse reactions and seasickness symptoms had they not taken the medication? Then, wouldn't it be true that taking anti-seasickness medication made those who took the medication better off? Yes.
This is exactly what answer choice (D) points out: "The seasickness symptoms of the people who took anti-seasickness medication would have been more severe had they not taken the medication."
Thus, taking the medication did benefit these people, because the medication at least quelled their symptoms to be less severe. So, answer choice (D) weakens the conclusion of the argument.
Hope that was helpful! Please let us know if you have nay other questions.
jstaffSeptember 4, 2018
I fortunately got this question correct- as I narrowed down my answer choices to 'D' and 'A'
I can see why D is stronger but what exactly about 'A' makes it incorrect because I could see this being a trap answer. Is it because it does not directly relate/mention medication as D does?
Max-YoungquistSeptember 5, 2018
@jstaff yes, you're on the right track. Think about it this way: you can't explain differences between two groups by describing something that is common to both groups. Here, we're told that most ferry passengers will have some symptoms of sea sickness. But we're talking about TWO groups of passengers: those who took medication and those who did not. So (A) does not weaken OR strengthen the conclusion.
The LSAT likes to test this concept with changes over time as well. If a conclusion makes a claim about something changing over time, and then gives you answer choices that only talk about one point in time, those answer choices are almost always incorrect. If the conclusion talks about differences, your answer choices should explain , or at least reference, those differences.
