Women Who are Married Sleep More Soundly GMAT Critical Reasoning

Question: Women who are married sleep more soundly than women who have never married or lost a partner, according to research from an eight-year study. Furthermore, it is well established that sleeping less than six hours a night makes you 12% more likely to die prematurely than someone who sleeps up to eight hours. Therefore, getting married increases a woman's life expectancy.

Which of the following, if true, does NOT strengthen the argument above?

1. Populations with lower odds of premature death have higher life expectancies.
2. Getting married does not lead to oversleep.
3. Marriage may introduce lifespan-shortening factors into a woman's life, but these factors tend to be collectively of less consequence than the benefit of sounder sleep.
4. Not sleeping soundly is the key reason women who cannot sleep at least eight hours a night fail to do so.
5. The psychology of women who marry is, on average, more conducive to sound sleep than that of women who have never married or lost a partner.

“Women Who are Married Sleep More Soundly“is a GMAT Critical question. This particular GMAT Critical Reasoning topic has been taken from the book ‘GMAT Official Verbal Reasoning”. In this particular topic, candidates need to choose the option that best suits the passage. GMAT critical reasoning tests the logical and analytical skills of the candidates. Critical reasoning in GMAT requires candidates to find the strengths and weaknesses of the argument, or find the logical flaw in the argument.  The GMAT CR section contains 10 -13 GMAT critical reasoning questions out of 36 GMAT verbal questions.

Answer: E
Explanation:

Let us check the Premises as per the passage:
- Married women sleep more soundly.
- Sleeping less than six hours can make you 12% more likely to die prematurely than others who sleeps up to eight hours.

We can conclude that:
- Getting married increases a woman's life expectancy.

The author in the argument talks about "die prematurely" in premises but concludes about "higher life expectancy". We do not know if they are linked.
Also, one premise tells us that married women "sleep soundly" while the other talks about "hours of sleep". We also do not know if these are linked.

Now, we will go through each option to see which one suits the most with the given argument:

1. Populations with lower odds of premature death have higher life expectancies. – This option creates a link between premature death and higher life expectancy. Hence it strengthens the argument. However, we are looking for an option that weakens it. Hence, this is incorrect.
2. Getting married does not lead to oversleep. – This option establishes the fact that married women do not sleep for more than 8 hrs. We do not know if the life expectancy is higher for people who sleeps more than 8 hours. Since the option clearly mentions "upto 8 hrs", it brings the amount of sleep for married women in that range. Hence it increases the chances of higher life expectancy for them. hence, we can consider this as incorrect. 
3. Marriage may introduce lifespan-shortening factors into a woman's life, but these factors tend to be collectively of less consequence than the benefit of sounder sleep. – This option do not tell us how marriage affects other aspects. This tells us that sounder sleep trumps all other factors. Hence, it can be concluded that married women sleeps sounder and longer, leading to a healthier life. This also strengthens the argument, making it incorrect.
4. Not sleeping soundly is the key reason women who cannot sleep at least eight hours a night fail to do so. – This option links "sleeping soundly" to "sleeping upto 8 hrs a day". This statement also strengthens the argument.
5. The psychology of women who marry is, on average, more conducive to sound sleep than that of women who have never married or lost a partner. – The reason of why married women sleep soundly does not impact the argument. We need to understand what happens because married women sleep soundly. This does not strengthen the argument, making it the correct answer. 

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