Mini-Passage 4, pg. 237

[noonieb]

Hi There,

I missed most of the questions on this mini-passage, but in particular I don't understand the reasoning for the correct answer in question #2, regarding the role played by the argument in lines 6-8.

Although I kept answer choice D as a possibility, I ultimately went with answer choice C. I did not choose answer choice D because I felt the author did not go so far as to make a RECOMMENDATION anywhere in the mini-passage.

Any additional insight would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Danielle

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi Danielle,

Thanks for the question! I completely agree with you that it feels like the passage stops just short of making a recommendation, and I understand how that makes D frustrating! In some ways, this is a case of "You're looking for the best answer, not the perfect answer." A, B, C, and E are all much more problematic than D. For C, the reason is that the "summary" of the position the argument discredits is the phrase beginning, "Increased consumption of meat and meat by-products pose..." The lines referenced here provides support for that position, but are not themselves the position. Does that make sense?

[jojapaych]

Yet... I find it unsubstantiated that anything comes close to calling the author's conclusion a recommendation. The only thing we see that entails a recommendation is the failure of "most diets" to recommend something. But this is obviously neither the recommendation referenced in (C) nor a recommendation the author gives at all. So it's not just that this is an "imperfect" answer, it seems to be a straight up wrong answer, correct only in the first portion of acknowledging the proponents' possible objection, but invalidated by the incorrect characterization in the second half of the AC.

Btw, did this come from an actual LSAT? I can't find the PT reference for it in the Reference section. Please advise on this.

[Jeremy Press]

Hi joja,

Mini Passages are drills created for the purpose of testing certain concepts in the Bibles, but they are not themselves released LSAT passages.

Answer choice C, as Emily mentioned, doesn't work, because the position the passage as a whole is directed toward discrediting is summed up in the first sentence of the passage: "the dubious assumption that increased consumption of meat and meat by-products pose minimal health risks to the human body." In fact, the author of the passage acknowledges that it is "correct" when proponents "observe" that cholesterol intake doesn't directly correlate with LDL cholesterol concentration. If the proponents "correctly" observe that, our author isn't trying to discredit that statement.

Sometimes in a passage you'll find that a recommendation is implied rather than explicit. That is the case here. The argument is designed, without quite explicitly saying it, to warn the reader off of the bad type of "Paleo diets" (even though, as answer choice D says, the proponents' "correct" observation in lines 6-8 could be a possible objection to that implied recommendation). Is "put forth" a little stronger than I might have worded the implied recommendation? Maybe just a little. But there's support for reading the passage consistently with answer choice D (see also the warning at the end of the passage that "most diets fail..."), and there are very good reasons to reject the others.

It might not be as satisfying as you'd hope, but it's the best we've got here!

Jeremy