Preptest 42 section 2 question 3

This is a good example of an LSAT cause and effect scenario. The author notes that high blood pressure and nervousness/anxiety are correlated--people with high blood pressure tend to be more nervous and anxious. But the author then incorrectly assumes a causal link, presuming that nerves and anxiety cause high blood pressure. This is a weak argument, since there are other possible explanations (maybe high blood pressure causes increased anxiety, for example, or maybe a third variable contributes to both high blood pressure and a "hypertensive" personality).

Since the author incorrectly presumes a causal link, the right answer is choice D, which says that the author takes a correlation as proof of a cause.

Answer choice E might look enticing, almost like it presents alternative causes, but the author's mistake is not that other personality traits are left out. The author's mistake is looking at a correlation and presuming a cause/effect relationship. This choice suggests that the author should consider other correlations--but even if other personality trait correlations were considered, it would still be wrong to jump to a causal conclusion, as the author has done in the passage.