PrepTest 132, Section 4, Question 26
Sociologist: A recent study of 5,000 individuals found,(59 more words not shown)
Each of the following, if(14 more words not shown)
- ADoctors are less(19 more words not shown)
- BPeople over 65(19 more words not shown)
- CPeople over 65(18 more words not shown)
- DPeople 65 or(16 more words not shown)
- EPeople 65 or(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Having enough money for food doesn't guarantee getting enough nutrients.
Among the older people in this study, more than a quarter were malnourished, but only 12 percent were below the poverty standard. So some malnourished older people weren't below that standard. Perhaps they could afford food but were eating an unbalanced diet. Perhaps an illness or medication made it hard to eat enough. Those possibilities separate nutrition from income.
For the younger group, the order flips: a larger percentage were below the poverty standard than were malnourished. We aren't given the younger group's actual percentages, so don't invent a direct comparison of the two groups' malnutrition rates. The finding concerns how malnutrition and poverty compare within each age group.
What we’re looking for
This is an EXCEPT question. Four answers should help explain why the older group's malnutrition rate could exceed its poverty rate, while the younger group's malnutrition rate does not. Look for differences in eating, nutrient needs, or other conditions affecting nutrition. The correct answer will leave that contrast unexplained.
Working the answers
- A
If doctors are less likely to recognize and treat malnutrition in older patients, those patients may remain malnourished when younger patients would receive treatment. The study's physical exam could then find an unresolved problem that ordinary medical care had missed.
The study isn't merely counting diagnoses in medical records. It examines participants itself. Missed diagnoses beforehand could therefore leave more untreated cases for the researchers to discover. Less treatment can allow a nutritional problem to persist, even when poverty isn't the cause.
- B
A medication that raises nutrient requirements can make a previously adequate diet inadequate. Someone could have enough money and keep eating the same food but still fall short of a newly increased need. If older people are more likely to take such medication, that helps explain the finding.
- C
Money doesn't make someone hungry. If medication reduces appetite more often among older people, they may eat too little despite being able to afford food. This supplies a reason for malnutrition outside the group below the poverty standard.
- DCorrect
“No more likely” means the younger group's poverty rate is no higher than the older group's; it doesn't necessarily mean the rates are equal. But either way, D only compares poverty rates across the age groups.
It doesn't explain why malnutrition exceeds poverty among older people while falling below poverty among younger people. We still need something connecting age to nutrition beyond that comparison of income. The other answers provide such a difference; D leaves it unaddressed.
- E
If digestive conditions are more common among older people, eating enough food may still not give them the nutrients they need. That supplies another way older people could become malnourished without being below the poverty standard. Younger people being less affected by those conditions helps explain the contrast.
More Paradox questions
Learn the LSAT our way
Our platform drills Paradox questions at your level and adjusts as you improve.