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I recently had this question on a placement exam, and I got it wrong.

Which best fills in the blank dialogue between the options in the following conversation?

A : Recently, I've been sleeping far less than I normally do. Do you think this could be related to stress?

B : Well, We all have stress but how it affects us differs from one person to another.

A :...............................

B :Probably, I also know people who suffer eating disorders due to their stress level.

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I chose option C because I saw a connection between "poor appetite" in the option and "eating disorder" in the last sentence in the conversation, but my answer was marked incorrect. To me it seems to be a reasonable sentence and I don't understand why it was wrong, or what would make one of the other options better.
Can someone explain what the correct choice is, and why it is the best fit?

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Deniz
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    Hi Deniz, and welcome to ELU. As it stands, this looks a lot like a "just tell me the correct answer to my homework" question, which we generally do not handle. If you can add some of your own reasoning about which one you think is the best and why you have doubts about it or the other ones, that would go a long way toward making this an acceptable question. – Hellion Apr 07 '16 at 16:58
  • I edited the question for you to incorporate your comment and to make the question on-topic for us. Feel free to edit it further (by clicking the "edit" link at the bottom of the question) if you have more details to add, or if I got something wrong. – Hellion Apr 07 '16 at 17:16
  • I'm sorry, but you'd have to throw a dart to answer that one. – Hot Licks Apr 07 '16 at 17:20
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this is a question about reasoning, not exclusive to the English language. – anongoodnurse Apr 07 '16 at 17:23

2 Answers2

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A) is the correct answer here.

This is because it is the only statement that expresses some level of uncertainty (via "I think"), which is required for person B to start their response with "Probably".

The question within Answer D) could result in person B saying "Probably", but the rest of B's response is not relevant to the question contained in answer D), so it is not a good fit.

Answer C) does not provide a reason for B's "Probably", and is also not correct because it explicitly links lack of sleep with eating problems, while person B's response is talking about a link between stress and eating problems; so B's response does not follow well.

In a real conversation, of course, B can say anything he pleases in response to whatever A says, whether it makes sense or not; and all of the 5 options do have some validity. However, for exam purposes, sentence A) clearly makes the most sense.

Hellion
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  • Thank you. Yes the answer is A. Can I ask , I have never taken GRE exam do you think this question is good enough that can be asked in an exam like GRE or do you think I got it wrong because I am not native English, that is, it would be too easy for native speakers.. – Deniz Apr 07 '16 at 17:32
  • @Deniz it seems like a reasonable question to me at the GRE (i.e. post-graduate) level, but I am a native English speaker. – Hellion Apr 07 '16 at 17:36
  • @Deniz The main thing about the GRE's Verbal section that I recall is, you don't get questions with 1 "right" answer and 4 "wrong" answers, you get questions with 1 "best" answer and 4 "not-as-good" answers; it can definitely take some doing to explain why one answer stands out as clearly "best", and in some cases it's really not clear at all, or hinges on a very minor point. – Hellion Apr 07 '16 at 17:42
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A) is the answer, because it is predicting that he is one of those people whose sleeping patterns are affected by stress.

Cathy Gartaganis
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