#10 - Nutritionists believe that a person’s daily

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Weaken. The correct answer choice is (D)

This simple stimulus provides two pieces of basic information (premises), followed by a conclusion:

According to nutritionists, people can meet their daily vitamin needs by eating five servings of fruit
and vegetables per day. Most people eat far less than the required five servings.

Conclusion: Most people need to take vitamin pills.

For some reason, the author assumes that the only alternative to the five recommended servings
would be vitamin pills. Since the question which follows is a Weaken, perhaps we should look
for an answer choice which provides another option that allows people to follow the nutritionists’
recommendation.

Answer choice (A): If even five servings of fruits and vegetables would sometimes be insufficient,
this increases the need for some substitute source of vitamins.

Answer choice (B): The fact that there is a wide variety of vitamin-levels among fruits and
vegetables does not weaken the argument that most people should be taking vitamin pills, since the
problem is that most people eat far less than five servings of fruits and vegetables per day.

Answer choice (C): Even if there is some disagreement as to what constitutes a complete serving,
this does not weaken the simple argument in the stimulus: since most eat far less than the
recommended five servings per day, most should take vitamin pills.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice, as it provides another possible source of
necessary vitamins, beyond those of fruits, vegetables, and vitamin pills. If many common foods are
vitamin fortified, then this provides another option, weakening the argument that most people need
to take vitamin pills.

Answer choice (E): The argument from the stimulus regards fruits, vegetables, and vitamins.
Even though this choice provides a benefit of food that is unavailable in vitamin pills, fiber is not
mentioned in the stimulus, so this answer choice does not weaken the author’s conclusion.

[smile22]

In this question I was torn between answers B and D. I incorrectly chose B. What is the difference between these answers as they both appear to say very similar things. Is B incorrect because "availability" does not mean that people actually eat the commonly available fruits and vegetables whereas in D it makes the distinction between availability and actual consumption?

[David Boyle]

In this question I was torn between answers B and D. I incorrectly chose B. What is the difference between these answers as they both appear to say very similar things. Is B incorrect because "availability" does not mean that people actually eat the commonly available fruits and vegetables whereas in D it makes the distinction between availability and actual consumption?

Hello,

Answer B is not helpful in that it doesn't matter that some fruits/vegetables are better than others. Maybe people know that already and avoid the worse ones, say.
So, yes, there is a difference between "availability" and actual consumption.
Whereas, answer D really beats up on the vitamin thing, since if people are getting the proper nutrients from other foods, why do they need vitamin pills?

David

[smile22]

Thank you for the explanation!

[LSAT student]

Hello,

I chose choice (E) and need help with eliminating it. As a weaken question, that means information outside of the stimulus is allowed in the answer choices. So I don't see why mentioning fiber makes it easy to eliminate just because fiber is not mentioned in the stimulus. Is there a different way I could have ruled out choice E? And what about D should have stood out to me? I had eliminated that answer altogether and left B as a contender.

[Adam Tyson]

The reason that E doesn't weaken this argument is that fiber is not relevant to the issue being discussed in the stimulus, which is vitamins. Even if pills don't give you fiber, you still may need to take them to get your vitamins! We need to weaken the claim that vitamin pills are required because people are not getting enough vitamins from fruits and veggies, and answer D does that by telling us about an alternate source of those vitamins.

When an argument is built around the structure of "X is insufficient, so we must do Y," the flaw is failing to consider other alternatives. What if we could do Z instead? You can weaken such arguments by pointing out that a third alternative does in fact exist. You can strengthen it by saying that there is no third alternative. If it is an Assumption question, the author must be assuming there is no third alternative. Watch for that very common structure, and think about alternatives!