#17 - Dietary researcher: A recent study reports that

[SherryZ]

Hi there! Thank you for your time and patience!

June 2001 LSAT, Sec 2 LR, Q17:

I chose C but the correct answer is A.

I know the best way to avoid to be distracted by wrong answers is to PRE-PHRASE. However, I am not good at doing this, maybe because English is not my first language My weaknesses are Strengthen & Weaken questions

Could you tell me:
1. How to pre-pharase this question? and,
2. Why A can weaken but C cannot?
3. How to conquer Strengthen & Weaken Questions?

I appreciate your help!

Sincerely,
Sherry

[Adam Tyson]

Hi Sherry, thanks for your question.

As with any weaken or stregthen question, the first step is to identify the argument's conclusion. What is the author here trying to prove? Once you know that, you will be looking for an answer that has the greatest impact on that conclusion - in this case, weakening it.

We start off by talking about a study, and so you might immediately start thinking of problems that come up with studies and surveys - did the study control for all other variables? Was there some bias in the way it was constucted or carried out?

In this case, though, the author isn't trying to draw a conclusion based on the study - he is actually trying to discredit the study. His conclusion, in the middle of the stimulus, is that the conclusion drawn by some doctors based on that study is not supported. In other words, he is saying that the study is flawed. He goes on to explain why, telling us that the animlas in the study were not "normal". That may be the cause for your confusion here (and it no doubt confused many others who automatically started looking for answers that would discredit, rather than support, the study). Understanding what the author's conclusion is is crucial to performing well on these questions.

Once you have the right conclusion in mind, your prephrase to weaken the argument might be as simple as "the study was good", or perhaps "it's okay that the animals we studied weren't normal". There's no need to get very complex or too specific with your prephrases (and I understand how that language barrier can hinder you - I have worked with many students in similar situations). Keep it simple, and then ask yourself "which of these answer choices does that?"

Answer A helps us the most here - if North Americans eat more than is optimal, then the animals in the study who also ate more than was optimal until their diets were restricted are a good substitute for North Americans, and the doctors' conclusion (that restricting the diets of North Americans would produce results similar to those seen in the lab animals) IS supported. Remember, our author said those doctors were wrong - Answer A weakens that by saying that the doctors were right after all.

Answer C really has no impact here - we want to show that the study was good, and that the doctors' conclusion was supported (which weakens our author's conclusion - be careful not to confuse those two). The fact that sometimes important studies may be done without using lab animals does nothing to help validate this study or otherwise tell us that our author is wrong.

I hope that helped! Good luck.

[adlindsey]

I had this between A & D. I choose D and I'm having trouble distinguishing why A is the better answer? I understand the "some" in D is vague. It could include just a few or a lot.

[Adam Tyson]

The biggest problem with D, adlindsey, is that it fails to address the study. The author wants to discredit the study and tell us that it's not a good basis for claiming that a reduced calories diet would help. D supports the idea that such a diet helps, but it fails to address the study in question. Since our author was focused on showing why the study does not support the conclusion, we need to weaken the author by showing that the study actually DOES support it.

We've seen a lot of causal/study questions like this one, where there is a study and that study is used to support a causal claim, and the author concludes either that the study helped or that it did not help. The very attractive wrong answers tend to focus on the causal claim, making it better or worse, but fail to address the study. The right answers will be more connected to the study and its validity or flaws.

So, beware of the conclusion! If it's merely a causal conclusion (so A probably causes B), then you can use the standard causal argument responses to weaken (suggest an alternate cause, etc.) or strengthen (eliminate an alternate cause, etc.), but if the conclusion is about the study ("these results support the claim that..." or "these results do not support the claim that...") then you must focus on helping or hurting the study.

Keep at it!

[deck1134]

(B) is totally irrelevant here, right?

Thanks!

[S2KMo]

How do you know that the author wants to discredit the study exactly? From what I read, it seems as if the conclusion the author is making is that: the conclusion the doctors are advocating is not supported. And then the author goes on to explain why. I don't see how you can make the observation that the authors motive is to disprove the study, because to me, an answer choice that discredited the doctors' conclusion at all was fair game. Please help explain where I'm going wrong

[Brook Miscoski]

S2KMo,

Tough call. My own opinion is that the author isn't trying to discredit the study, just the conclusion that doctors later drew based on the study. The author doesn't claim that the study is wrong, he just says doctors were wrong about what it shows. So I agree with you.

On the other hand, someone could feel it was implied that the study was about raising an animal's life expectancy above its normal life expectancy. I don't read it that way, but it's certainly not a stretch.

Either way you read it, the author's premise is that we only know that reducing caloric intake to appropriate levels restores normal life expectancy, and his conclusion is that decreasing caloric intake will not increase human life expectancy. We still pick (A), which introduces the consideration that Americans eat too much.

Different people will have slightly different reads of connotation and denotation. Try to focus on the main aspect of the analysis.

[lsatquestions]

Why is E incorrect?

[Beth Hayden]

Hi LSAT,

If there is a strong correlation between diet and longevity in some species of animals, that doesn't really impact the conclusion at all. The conclusion is saying that restricting calories will not cause North American humans to live longer. The reasoning is not that diet doesn't impact longevity, but that reducing calories only helps if you are already eating too much (so eating less puts you at a "normal" range). Now that reasoning only makes sense when applied to humans in North America if you assume that we are (on average) consuming calories at normal, optimal levels. But of course we all know that is not true! Maybe we are just like the laboratory animals, eating more than we should. That is exactly what answer choice (A) is getting at--if we are eating too much, like the laboratory animals, then the study might also apply to North American humans.

Hope that helps!
Beth