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- Mon Sep 02, 2013 1:55 pm
#10723
Complete Question Explanation
Flaw in the Reasoning—SN. The correct answer choice is (A)
In this case the author’s first two premises are presented in the first two sentences of the stimulus, and the conclusion appears at the end. To begin, we are told that reducing one’s fat intake can help a person to avoid heart disease, and that if one avoids dairy foods, one is less likely to eat fat. These two conditional premises can be linked, as follows:
In cases like this, most students go through the answers and end up selecting a response they feel is closest to the "overly broad" idea (which is often (D)). Answer choice (D) doesn't really describe an overly broad conclusion or a change in terms, although it is understandable as to why it appealed: nothing else looked good so choose the closest thing, right? But (D) describes a flaw that doesn't exist, since everything here is clearly relevant. When this happens, and you have a voice in the back of your head telling you an answer isn't great, you must look for some other error. Because what they chose to do here in the answers was focus on a different error in the stimulus than the one in the conclusion.
This other flaw is that there could be more to the story (milk has fat, for example, but might offer some health benefits as well). So, since we only have been told one thing about dairy (fat), and we don’t know all of the effects of dairy avoidance (positive or negative), it is not valid to conclude that by avoiding dairy one can improve one’s changes of staying healthy.
Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice, as it provides an appropriate description of one flaw in the reasoning: the author only considers one negative consequence of eating dairy (the likelihood of eating fat), but the author fails to consider the fact that avoiding dairy could also yield negative results. This can be an easy answer to miss since the conclusion tends to draw most of the focus, but the key is that if you see an obvious flaw but no answer fully addresses it, look for a different flaw entirely!
Answer choice (B): This is not the flaw in the author’s reasoning, because the author doesn’t need to consider every way that one might reduce one’s fat intake. If the author instead had fallaciously claimed that avoiding dairy was the method to do so, this choice might be a winner. As it stands, however, this answer cannot be correct.
Answer choice (C): This is certainly not the flaw found in this stimulus, because the author doesn’t make such a broad claim—the author doesn’t say that every factor carrying negative consequence risks should be eliminated. Rather, the author only concludes that one can increase the chances of staying healthy by avoiding one food group (dairy)—also a flaw, but of a different sort.
Answer choice (D): This choice claims that the author appeals to evidence of questionable relevance, but this is not the case—while the stimulus author’s argument is flawed, the notion of lowering one’s fat intake by avoiding dairy is certainly relevant to the discussion of the maintenance of good health.
Answer choice (E): The author does not presume that anything will necessarily occur, but deals instead with probabilities, so this answer choice can be eliminated.
Flaw in the Reasoning—SN. The correct answer choice is (A)
In this case the author’s first two premises are presented in the first two sentences of the stimulus, and the conclusion appears at the end. To begin, we are told that reducing one’s fat intake can help a person to avoid heart disease, and that if one avoids dairy foods, one is less likely to eat fat. These two conditional premises can be linked, as follows:
- Avoid dairy foods
reduce likelihood of eating fat reduce likelihood of heart disease
- Avoid dairy foods increase chance of maintaining good health
In cases like this, most students go through the answers and end up selecting a response they feel is closest to the "overly broad" idea (which is often (D)). Answer choice (D) doesn't really describe an overly broad conclusion or a change in terms, although it is understandable as to why it appealed: nothing else looked good so choose the closest thing, right? But (D) describes a flaw that doesn't exist, since everything here is clearly relevant. When this happens, and you have a voice in the back of your head telling you an answer isn't great, you must look for some other error. Because what they chose to do here in the answers was focus on a different error in the stimulus than the one in the conclusion.
This other flaw is that there could be more to the story (milk has fat, for example, but might offer some health benefits as well). So, since we only have been told one thing about dairy (fat), and we don’t know all of the effects of dairy avoidance (positive or negative), it is not valid to conclude that by avoiding dairy one can improve one’s changes of staying healthy.
Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice, as it provides an appropriate description of one flaw in the reasoning: the author only considers one negative consequence of eating dairy (the likelihood of eating fat), but the author fails to consider the fact that avoiding dairy could also yield negative results. This can be an easy answer to miss since the conclusion tends to draw most of the focus, but the key is that if you see an obvious flaw but no answer fully addresses it, look for a different flaw entirely!
Answer choice (B): This is not the flaw in the author’s reasoning, because the author doesn’t need to consider every way that one might reduce one’s fat intake. If the author instead had fallaciously claimed that avoiding dairy was the method to do so, this choice might be a winner. As it stands, however, this answer cannot be correct.
Answer choice (C): This is certainly not the flaw found in this stimulus, because the author doesn’t make such a broad claim—the author doesn’t say that every factor carrying negative consequence risks should be eliminated. Rather, the author only concludes that one can increase the chances of staying healthy by avoiding one food group (dairy)—also a flaw, but of a different sort.
Answer choice (D): This choice claims that the author appeals to evidence of questionable relevance, but this is not the case—while the stimulus author’s argument is flawed, the notion of lowering one’s fat intake by avoiding dairy is certainly relevant to the discussion of the maintenance of good health.
Answer choice (E): The author does not presume that anything will necessarily occur, but deals instead with probabilities, so this answer choice can be eliminated.