How will the right answer fit in terms of support and conclusion?

Only the right answer will add support for the conclusion.

Highlight the main conclusion in the passage, if there is one:

the increases result from the psychological stress of communicating rather than from the physical exertion of speech production.

Psychologist: [BACKGROUND]. But [SUPPORT]. This suggests that [CONCLUSION].

You caught that the conclusion is claiming cause-and-effect, right? The argument is that increases in blood pressure are caused by the “psychological stress of communicating”. Of course, one little fact about introverts’ blood pressure going up more doesn’t establish that cause-and-effect relationship is real. That’s what the right answer will “strengthen”.

Map the wording of the answers to the wording of the passage:

(A) Medications designed to lower blood pressure…

…are never mentioned. That can be okay when you’re looking to add support, but the connection to the argument has to be obvious. Since treatment for high blood pressure doesn’t really have anything to do with whether talking causes blood pressure to increase, this isn’t adding support for the conclusion.

(B) …the lower one’s typical blood pressure…

Where does the passage say anything about anyone’s “typical” blood pressure? That’s right, it doesn’t. You’d have to add in your own assumption about that to make this connect to the reasoning in the argument.

If you liked this because it connects increases in blood pressure to “stress”, you missed the critical part of the conclusion. It’s not just stress that the author says causes the increases, it’s stress from “communicating”. Since “speaking” is mentioned in the background, the support, and twice in the conclusion, I’d expect you to understand that’s part of the cause-and-effect the author is arguing for.

(C) …often sense the rises in blood pressure…

I hope it’s clear that whether someone can “sense” their blood pressure going up has absolutely nothing to do with the cause-and-effect pattern in the argument. That wouldn’t tell us whether “the psychological stress of communicating” causes increases in blood pressure or not, so it doesn’t support the conclusion.

(D) Deaf people experience increased blood pressure when they sign…

Boom! Here’s another case where “communicating” leads to “increased blood pressure”. This answer even goes out of its way to be clear that the higher blood pressure couldn’t be caused by “the physical exertion of speech production”, since deaf folks aren’t actually speaking. That maps beautifully to the author’s conclusion, and it definitely supports their cause-and-effect claim. Love this.

(E) Extroverted people are more likely to have…

Kudos if you spotted that the support in the passage is a comparison between extroverts and introverts. This answer maps to that comparison. But the conclusion isn’t about that comparison, it was just an example meant to show cause-and-effect. This also brings in “chronically” and “take medication”, new wording the passage never used. Since it’s not just common sense how that relates to the argument, you should consider that outside the scope and irrelevant.

(D) is the correct answer.