PrepTest 114, Section 1, Question 6
Every year, new reports appear concerning the health(53 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(9 more words not shown)
- AThe argument takes(9 more words not shown)
- BThe argument presumes,(15 more words not shown)
- CThe argument fails(12 more words not shown)
- DThe argument presumes,(20 more words not shown)
- EThe argument fails(17 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Something can have a benefit and a risk at the same time.
Imagine a drink that helped with weight management but created a heart-related risk. Those would be two different effects, not two incompatible findings. We aren't adding those as medical facts about coffee. The example shows why 'dangerous in one way' doesn't mean 'beneficial in no way.'
What we’re looking for
The author calls the two reports contradictory without explaining why their claims can't both be true. Then the argument goes from those reports to dismissing experts as a guide to health decisions altogether. That is another broad jump: two articles don't establish that every expert is useless, and we aren't even told who produced the articles. For the flaw question, my first target is the supposed contradiction. The reports could describe different aspects of the same drink.
Working the answers
- A
The author reports the claim that coffee is dangerous without taking that claim as established fact. The argument rests on what it views as conflicting opinions, not on deciding that the danger claim is the correct one. A misidentifies what is being assumed.
- B
Whether people always want advice is different from whether the advice is useful. Someone might not want useful guidance, or might want guidance that turns out to be useless. The argument doesn't need to assume a universal desire for expert help.
- C
The conclusion concerns guidance about health. Experts could be very useful in plumbing or another area without resolving whether their health advice is useful. An argument needn't examine every other field to assess this one. Its actual problem is what it infers from the two health reports.
- D
The author isn't reasoning from one trustworthy expert opinion to the trustworthiness of all expert opinions. The conclusion goes in the opposite direction: experts are said to be useless. D describes a generalization the author doesn't make.
- ECorrect
Coffee could be harmful in one respect and beneficial in another. Then both reports could be accurate, and their combination wouldn't expose a contradiction at all. Someone deciding what to do might need to weigh a benefit against a risk. The existence of that tradeoff doesn't make the information useless.
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