Question

When facing various challenges, people in today’s digital world heavily rely on private, online informationseeking behaviour. Individuals who experience depression will often attempt to understand their predicament and seek remedy by searching the Internet for depression-related information and treatment. A recent report says that there exists evidence of many searches comprising the word depression, during and just after the elections, in country Y. So, it can be concluded that the election is experienced by many people in country Y as a truly psychologically traumatizing event—and as such as being potentially depressionogenic.
Which of the following statements MOST seriously weakens the conclusion drawn in the passage?

• A. A survey in country Y shows that an election can cause a significant increase in the average level of depression.
• B. Depression-related advertisements are on the rise during and just after the election in country Y.
• C. Many people do not use the Internet in country X.
• D. Election is a festival in some countries, people happily choose their leader by casting votes.
• E. Per day sale of anti-depression drugs is constant across the years in country Y.

Answer 1

Answer: (E)

The argument states that there were searches on depression on the internet during and just after the elections in country Y. Hence, elections are a psychologically traumatising event for the people of country Y.

The passage also states that people attempt to understand their predicament and seek remedy by searching the internet for depression-related information and treatment.

We can weaken the author’s conclusion that elections are a traumatising event based on the search for depression during elections by finding from the options evidence that depression does not increase during elections.

This is given in option E. If the sale of antidepressants remains more or less the same throughout the year, this shows that depression is not more during elections.

Hence, E is the correct answer.