Ease Into Prep with a GMAT^® Question of the Day

Identify the Question Stem: The language if true and most seriously jeopardizes indicates that this is a Weaken the Argument question.

Deconstruct the Argument: The smokers in this study who reduced their nicotine intake from cigarettes didn't achieve significant health benefits—even if they reduced their intake by a great percentage. They didn't even decrease their mortality rate or their risk of cardiovascular disease. The sponsors conclude that reducing nicotine intake doesn't actually improve one's health.

Pause and State the Goal: On Weaken questions, your goal is to find something that makes the author's conclusion at least a little less likely to be valid. In this case, the sponsors claim that reducing nicotine intake doesn't actually improve your health. And the study results don't sound too good! Was something else going on that caused these particular smokers not to see health benefits?

Work from Wrong to Right:
(A) CORRECT. So tricky. Look at the first sentence of the argument: The participants reduced their intake of nicotine from cigarettes?but they didn't necessarily reduce their intake of nicotine overall, since they were getting nicotine instead from patches and gum. It's possible that they were ingesting just as much nicotine or possibly even more—and that could explain why they didn't see any health benefits.
(B) If anything, this strengthens the sponsors' claims. It indicates that the study participants were not cheating or otherwise undercounting how many cigarettes they continued to smoke during the study.
(C) The study had 50,000 participants; it would be expected that they smoked different amounts and started smoking at different ages. This doesn't impact the study results or the conclusion.
(D) The study only tested reducing nicotine intake, not eliminating it entirely. It may be true that quitting entirely will result in health benefits, but the conclusion is only about reducing intake.
(E) The fact that the study was open only to cigarette smokers doesn't weaken the outcome of the study. The data itself is still accurate.

The correct answer is (A).