Q18 - Astronauts who experience weightlessness frequently

[ldanny24]

Hi all,

Just wanted to clarify something,

So the reason A is correct is because a person sitting in the passenger cabin during rough voyages has one bodily sense that tells him he is moving (probably his equilibrium) and another bodily sense (his eyes) telling him he isn't, since he is moving with the room itself? Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

Thanks all

[bbirdwell]

Something like that. The one with a window can see the ocean moving outside, thus no conflict. The one without a window cannot see the ocean, yet the room is moving. Conflict.

(B) no conflict

(C) weakens if anything

(D) close! but couldn't the aisle folks see out the window? (A) is better on this front.

(E) doesn't strengthen.

[glax69]

(a) I didn't pay enough attention to the word "rough".

(b) is this really no conflict?

Passengers feel that they aren't moving... But they can see that they are by looking at clouds/landmarks on the ground.

[bbirdwell]

Where does (B) say that passengers feel like they aren't moving?

[adarsh.murthy]

What role does weightlessness play here? Can we infer that this is necessary for motion sickness?

I still dont get why A is right:
The stimuli says: weightlessness+see you are moving+ear telling brain not moving (conflict ear/visula with given pre condition of weightlessness)=> motion sick.

A) view of water(= see you are moving) + rough-ride(weightlessness?)=> less likely! this is more weakening than strengthening. I cant get my head around this. what two senses are conflicting in A?

Please help..

Thanks!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

What role does weightlessness play here? Can we infer that this is necessary for motion sickness?

The weightlessness of the astronauts tells their brains that they are not moving. The argument is that conflicting information about the body' motion causes motion sickness.

The example in the stimulus provides conflicting information to the brain. The ear is telling the brain that the body is not in motion, but the eyes of the astronauts are telling a different story.

The example in the correct answer choice (A) has different conflicting information: the eyes are suggesting that the body is not in motion, but the rough voyage is something that the either the inner ear or some other part of the body can detect.

So while the conflicting information is presented differently between the stimulus and answer choice (A), they both support the conclusion that conflicting information to the brain can cause motion sickness.

[Alvanith]

Hi guys!

I narrowed down to (A) and (B). I guess (B) is trying to eliminate an alternative explanation for motion sickness: whether a passenger is experienced or not is less likely to be the caused of the motion sickness because even experienced passengers still occasionally get sick. But I chose (A) because I thought (A) directly bears on the idea whether conflicting information causes motion sickness.

What am I missing?

Thanks in advance!

Edited:

Well, I just reviewed some of my posts on the forum, and this is one of those that can indicate my LR skills have improved...

SOME experienced passengers OCCASIONALLY get motion sickness does not quite affect the strength of the argument that conflict information BEST explains astronauts' motion sickness.

[WaltGrace1983]

This is a tough one that I do every few months and ALWAYS end up choosing between (A) and (C). I am going to solidify my understanding of this question once and for all. This is a strengthen question so let's look at the core.

Astronauts see their own motion relative to passing objects
+
Brain indicates that body is not moving
+
Motion sickness occurs
→
The conflicting information causes motion sickness.

This is more or less a correlation/causation issue. We are given a correlation (conflicting information and motion sickness) to say that conflicting information causes motion sickness. How can we strengthen this? Well it is unlikely that we would reverse the causal chain, say "motion sickness causes conflicting information." In addition, I don't really see how alternative explanations could come into play here. However, I think we could definitely provide an analogous situation in which there is the same cause, same effect.

I will get to (A) and (C) last because they both look good.

(B) is wrong because it is very inconsequential and fails to provide enough information. "Many people" do "occasionally" get motion sickness who are experience airplane passengers. This is the first red flag. These words so inconsequential for strengthen questions. We want something with more force. This just tells us that a few people have a particular effect - motion sickness - too. That's great but that doesn't do much for us. In addition, we know nothing about how these airplane passengers' brains are perceiving movement: are their inner ears telling them that they are moving? are their inner inners NOT telling them that they are moving? Also, what is their view like? Can they see themselves moving against passing objects or not? We don't know the answers to any of these questions and we shouldn't make assumptions. Let's move on.

(D) We can probably say that the people with aisle seats can still see the moving objects while the people with window seats definitely can. But what about their inner ears? Do these passengers have conflicting information? We simply don't know this information!

(E) This actually weakens. We can say that the astronauts will also see themselves moving relative to passing objects and will also have conflicting information. However, (E) says they DON'T get sick! This is basically saying that there is the same cause without the same effect. No good

Now onto (A) and (C)...

The thing that makes (C) so tempting is that it directly refers to the passenger's inner ears! It so easily makes this answer choice tempting because we are word-for-word talking about the same central concept. Let's dig deeper.

Their inner ears indicate movement.

Ohhh we are CLOSE! What do we want? How do we want this sentence to end!? We want this sentence to say something about how they cannot see the objects moving around them. In other words, their inner ears say "MOVEMENT" but their eyes say "NO MOVEMENT." Let's read further...

...and how have a clear view of the objects they are passing to get motion sickness

Darn. This actually is telling us that there is no conflicting information whatsoever! Their eyes indicate movement; their ears indicate movement. Yet they still get motion sickness. This in other words gives us the absence of the cause with the occurrence of the effect. This not only fails to strengthen. This weakens! A strengthener would say absence of cause = absence of effect. This goes in another direction.

(A) This initially doesn't look so hot. It doesn't seem to tell us much about the whole inner ear situation...or does it? Let's look at this: we are given a situation in which passengers who have no view of the ocean are getting motion sickness during a rough voyage. In other words, the argument is telling us that their eyes are sensing movement. However, we may be able to infer that - because of the "rough voyage" - their ears are actually sensing movement.

Thus, we have eyes saying "NO MOVEMENT" and we have ears saying "MOVEMENT." They get motion sickness! That looks good! It gives us the same cause with the same effect.

What makes this answer choice even better? It tells us that these people with conflicting information are more likely to get motion sickness than people w/o such conflicting information. Awesome! This really strengthens the argument!


Hope that helps.