Logic Breakdown

Passage Summary: A psychologist argues that because the patients they see have stress-related insomnia, no one should ever use sleeping pills, and everyone should just go to therapy instead.

Conclusion: Doctors should never prescribe sedatives to patients suffering from insomnia.

Reasoning: Most cases of insomnia seen by psychologists are caused by stress, suggesting that psychotherapy is the appropriate treatment rather than biochemical intervention.

Analysis: This is a 'Flawed Reasoning' question with an 'EXCEPT' stem, so we need to identify the legitimate flaws to find the one that isn't there. The psychologist's argument is quite a mess. First, they generalize from 'most cases psychologists treat' to all insomniacs (a classic sampling bias). Second, they assume that if a cause is psychological, a biochemical treatment is automatically 'unneeded' or wrong. Third, they ignore the 'minority' of cases that might not be caused by stress. The correct answer will be the one that does *not* describe a logical error present in this specific argument.

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15.

Each of the following describes a flaw in the psychologist's reasoning EXCEPT:

Correct Answer
A
A does not describe a flaw the argument commits. The psychologist never presumes that insomnia contributes to an inability to cope with stress; instead, the stated direction is that stress causes insomnia. So A misstates the relationship and is the EXCEPT.
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