#3 - Physician: We are constantly bombarded by warnings,

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Method-AP. The correct answer choice is (C).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[menkenj]

For this question, I see why C is the best answer. However I found E very attractive.

Perhaps E is wrong because the distinction between the definitive and initial studies is analogous to the fire alarm and fire drill, the role of the analogy is not highlight the distinction but rather to support the conclusion that medical establishment should only announce conclusion results if they want people to pay attention to health warnings.

Is that a fair assessment?

[Adam Tyson]

It's a perfect assessment, menkenj! Good work!

[oliviaguerra7]

Hello! Could someone please post the process of this question? I also chose A instead of C. Why is it a analogy rather than an example? Thank you!

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Olivia,

A complete explanation for this question is forthcoming, but hopefully this answer will help clear things up.

Analogies are a fairly common form of reasoning used on the LSAT. The test makers know that many people are unclear about the difference between an analogy and an example, so often one or more of the wrong answers will mention the other one to try to trip up test takers.

An analogy is when one thing is compared to something else (that is not literally the same thing) in order to show a similarity between the two. On the LSAT, there are both good analogies and bad analogies (where the two things are so different that what is true of one would not apply to the other). In plain English, we often describe this bad analogy by using the expression "comparing apples to oranges."

In this argument, fire alarms are not literally the same thing as the food health warnings, so the argument is using this as an analogy to show that just like people start to ignore fire alarms if they keep hearing false alarms, in a similar way, people will ignore food health warnings if they keep hearing/reading food health warning false alarms.

An example, on the other hand, is a specific instance of the very thing that is being discussed. Here, an example of a food health warning that was based on inconclusive research might be something like how experts previously believed that consuming eggs raised a person's cholesterol only to later learn that it does not have this effect. (Of course, this is just a hypothetical, don't quote me on this being medically accurate, although I seem recall something like this in the news!)