#4 - Our tomato soup provides good nutrition: for instance

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below! Thanks!

[Toby]

Hello!

I answered B on this question, but the correct answer is actually E. I originally thought that E would not weaken the conclusion that "Our soup provides good nutrition" because I thought I needed an answer that specifically addressed the soup, not the apricots or fresh carrots.

I selected B because I thought that the idea of a liquid losing vitamins would attack the claim that the tomato soup has good nutrition. On second thought, I guess this answer is incorrect because we cannot assume that the soup is in contact with air for a protracted period of time.

I would really appreciate a more thorough explanation of why E is correct and B is wrong. Thank you so much for your help!

[AthenaDalton]

Hi Toby,

Thanks for your question!

This advertisement argues that the company's soup "provides good nutrition" because it provides as much Vitamin C as apricots or carrots. A soup that has as much vitamins as fruits and veggies must be good for you, right?

Answer choice (E) undercuts this line of reasoning by telling us that apricots and carrots are actually quite low in Vitamin C and are only considered nutritious because they are high in Vitamin A. Therefore, a soup that has as much Vitamin C as a food that naturally has almost no Vitamin C in it isn't that nutritious after all. In fact, it's quite misleading to make such a comparison. That's why answer choice (E) is correct.

Answer choice (B) discusses vitamin loss from air exposure over a "protracted period of time." We don't know if the amount of time that a soup would sit in a bowl before being eaten would qualify as a "protracted period of time," so it's hard to know if this actually weakens the argument in the advertisement or not. In any case, if the soup were consumed quite quickly it would still be "nutritious." There just isn't the same level of deception inherent in answer choice (B) as there is in (E).

I hope this makes sense. Good luck studying!

Athena Dalton

[Hazel03]

Hi! I was wondering why option 'A' would be incorrect?

[James Finch]

Hi Hazel,

This is a Weaken question where the stimulus relies upon only a single premise to support its conclusion. So we need to attack the value of that premise in order to attack the conclusion. At first glance, both (A) and (E) would appear to do this; however there is a major difference in terms of the logical possibilities that each one represents. (A) says that most people don't rely upon apricots and carrots for all of their vitamin C needs, but this could still mean that those people still depend upon those two foods for most or even almost all of their vitamin C. And if those two foods still provide large amounts of vitamin C, the argument in the stimulus still holds, as providing more than they do would indeed make the tomato soup nutritious.

Contrast that with (E), which implies that carrots and apricots don't actually have provide much vitamin C, so saying that your company's soup provides more vitamin C than those other foods do isn't saying much. (E) creates a situation in which apricots and carrots provide minuscule amounts of vitamin C, so tomato soup could provide more and still be a tiny amount, and thus not nutritious.

Hope this clears things up!

[askuwheteau@protonmail.com]

Good morning,

I had trouble determining why E was a better answer compared to B. Here's my reasoning below:

A: Irrelevant

B: Talks about liquids in general which is Out of Scope (OoS) to the stimulus

C: Nutrients other than Vitamin C are OoS to the stimulus

D: Such as comparison of soup to strawberries is OoS to the stimulus

E: Weakens. Since the soup is being compared to Apricots and Carrots (which are low in Vitamin C), then by implication, the soup could be at least as low or somewhat higher in Vitamin C as compared to the Apricots and Carrots. Regardless, the argument is weakened by the presentation of this new information. Stronger reasoning could have been used by the advertisers.

Thanks in advance,

Jonathan

[Luke Haqq]

Hi Jonathan!

(B) suggests that the soup would cool down and thereby lose nutrients. However, this wouldn't make the advertisement misleading because the advertisement is specifically and only discussing warm soup. I wouldn't say that (B) necessarily brings in material that is out of scope, but rather it doesn't weaken a conclusion that is about the nutrient content of warm soup.

If answer choice (E) were true, however, that does make the advertisement seem misleading. If apricots and carrots are "widely known to be nutritious," as (E) supposes, but their nutritiousness comes from vitamin A rather than vitamin C, then it really "isn't saying much," as James notes above, if a company claims its warm soup provides more vitamin C than apricots and carrots.

[askuwheteau@protonmail.com]

Hi Luke,

All makes sense now. Thank you for the clarification.