PrepTest 120, Section 3, Question 11

What we’re looking for

Working the answers

• A

  A larger population can produce both more carrot demand and more people diagnosed with a deficiency. Notice that the passage gives a number of diagnoses, not the percentage of people diagnosed.

  For example, if a population doubled while the same percentage had the deficiency, the number of affected people would double too. That takes a different route from my initial guesses, but it makes the two increases easier to understand. Since A helps resolve the puzzle, it isn't our EXCEPT answer.

• B

  People could buy more carrots but get less vitamin A from the carrots they actually eat. The answer tells us these prepared carrots lose vitamins quickly after peeling. That weakens the connection between increased purchases and increased vitamin intake. It needn't mean every prepared carrot has no vitamins; a loss is enough to help explain the disappointing result.

• C
  Correct

  More carrot-heavy cuisines explain why demand rose. They don't explain why vitamin A deficiency diagnoses rose despite that demand. If anything, more people eating dishes with carrots leaves the same question: why aren't those additional carrots preventing the increase in deficiency? C elaborates on the buying side without resolving the apparent tension.

• D

  This matches the concern about who eats the extra carrots. The increase is confined to groups that already had low deficiency rates. Other groups could continue getting too little vitamin A and account for the rising diagnoses. More consumption in one part of the population doesn't guarantee better nutrition in another.

• E

  Wanting carrots isn't the same as getting them. Reduced availability could leave people unable to obtain enough carrots even while demand increases. The passage reports demand, not a confirmed increase in what people actually ate. E gives us a supply problem that helps explain why increased demand might coexist with deficiency.