PrepTest 122, Section 1, Question 18
Health officials now recommend that people reduce their(58 more words not shown)
The argument is vulnerable to(8 more words not shown)
- AIt neglects to(18 more words not shown)
- BIt assumes without(23 more words not shown)
- CIt presupposes that(19 more words not shown)
- DIt mistakes the(18 more words not shown)
- EIt fails to(22 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The recommendation is to cut back, not to stop eating steak forever.
First, the decline in beef consumption doesn't tell us why people cut back. Maybe they listened to the health officials; maybe beef became too expensive. Then we hear that steakhouses are doing well. Does that prove their customers are completely ignoring the advice?
A customer might go to a steakhouse and order something other than steak. More importantly, even someone who orders steak could be following the recommendation overall. Imagine giving up the burgers and beef dinners you used to eat at home, then having steak at a restaurant once a month as a treat. You still eat steak, but you eat much less than before.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw question, I'd look for one of those overlooked possibilities. The restaurant's success doesn't give us a full picture of its customers' diets. We need to distinguish some steak consumption from failing to reduce cholesterol intake at all.
Working the answers
- A
Low prices could help explain why the restaurants attract customers. But even customers who like a bargain might have reduced their overall intake. The author needs evidence about whether people are following the recommendation, not merely a different account of the restaurants' marketing success.
- B
Whether these customers medically need to reduce their intake is a different question from whether they are following the recommendation. The argument doesn't depend on assuming that steakhouse customers have no such need. It claims their behavior shows they are ignoring the advice.
- C
The argument doesn't explain the steakhouses' popularity by asserting that beef prices fell. It simply reports that the restaurants are flourishing. C assigns the author a price-based explanation that isn't present.
- D
The passage does mention both declining beef consumption and an overall decline in the restaurant industry. But it doesn't claim that one decline caused the other. The reasoning instead uses the success of one part of that industry—steakhouses—to infer what customers are doing about the health advice.
- ECorrect
Customers could reduce their cholesterol intake at home while continuing to visit steakhouses. That fits our example of someone who cuts out regular beef meals but keeps an occasional restaurant steak. The recommendation concerns reducing intake overall, so those changes could count as following it.
Steakhouses flourishing and people heeding the advice can therefore coexist. The author treats restaurant behavior as enough to judge the whole diet, overlooking changes outside the restaurant that could make the conclusion false.
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