#22 - A recent study confirms that nutritious breakfasts

[David Boyle]

Hi all,

So it asked to strengthen the study or what not.

I got it down to A and B. I went this B which was wrong. I would think that them starting work at the same time would strengthen the study because it rules out a possible problem in the study. I understand why A is correct but it would help if someone explained why B is incorrect. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

Hello LsatSoon2BMaster (a fine name, by the way),

Answers B and C may both strengthen the study somewhat, since they both show some equality between the A and B sets of workers ("Workers in the study from Plant A and Plant B started work at the same time of day", "During the month before the study, workers at Plant A and Plant B were equally productive"). But answer A is by far the best, because it deals with the main part of the study, the breakfasts.
Remember, "most strengthens the argument" is what you're looking for. An answer that may strengthen the argument a tiny bit (e.g., "Neither Plant A's nor Plant B's workers were harassed by Martians recently") is not what you're looking for, when something much more on point, i.e., answer A that shows that there wasn't an alternative source of breakfasts for the Plant B workers, is available for you to choose.

Hope this helps,
David

[ChicaRosa]

I don't see how A is correct?

I thought it was wrong because the stimulus said that the workers in Plant B did not receive free nutritious breakfasts everyday before going to work.

I ended up choosing D because if Plant B workers were taking more vacation days than the Plant A workers then that means less productivity.

Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

Hey Chica! You are right that the stimulus told us that the Plant B workers did not get a free, nutritious breakfast every day before work. But does that mean they did not eat a nutritious breakfast? I ate breakfast this morning, and it was pretty good, but it sure wasn't free! Maybe the Plant B workers ate their normal breakfast every day, either at home made from groceries they had purchased, or out at restaurants? That would really wreck this argument, wouldn't it? It would mean that breakfast couldn't be the factor that made one group more productive than another. Eliminating that possible alternate cause for the difference in productivity helps strengthen the original claim that breakfast was the cause.

Answer D might hurt our argument, rather than help it, by suggesting that vacation days impacted productivity rather than breakfast. That's an alternate cause! D would be an interesting answer if this was a weaken question, but since it's a strengthen question we have to toss it out.

Take another look and think about the difference between "free breakfast" and just "breakfast", and I think you''ll find answer A looks a lot better to you now. Good luck!

[lilmissunshine]

Hello,

I just had another thought about (C). I thought it's incorrect because the stimulus says "the productivity of Plant A's workers increased" which makes the initial productivity before the study irrelevant. In other words, even if Plant A and B had different initial productivity, it wouldn't matter as long as A's increased but B's did not. Since the two plants are comparing their own productive, it makes (C) an inferior answer.

Is my analysis correct? Many thanks!

[desiboy96]

Hello I was wondering why A is correct. I eliminated it because I thought so what if a few people in Plant B ate breakfast, that could undermine the argument because it shows that even though at least one of the workers there ate breakfast, Plant B's productivity did not go up like those in group A.

[Robert Carroll]

desi,

Answer choice (A) says "few workers" not "a few workers". The word "few" alone is actually a limitation on quantity. I found a post by Adam on this topic that I'll link here: viewtopic.php?p=63492#p63492

So here, we have that not very many workers in Plant B had nutritious breakfasts. Therefore, not many of them were also getting the nutrition that the stimulus credits for Plant A's better productivity, so there's more chance that the breakfast difference is responsible for the productivity difference.

Robert Carroll

[desiboy96]

Hey Robert, once again thank you so much for your help and for that link!