PrepTest 135, Section 1, Question 8
The proportion of fat calories in the diets(37 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the argument(7 more words not shown)
- Aillicitly infers a(4 more words not shown)
- Brelies on a(13 more words not shown)
- Cconfuses a condition(19 more words not shown)
- Dtakes for granted(11 more words not shown)
- Edraws a conclusion(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Maybe the people who care most about eating well are also the people who read the labels.
That would explain both parts of the pattern. Someone already concerned about diet might choose foods with less fat and check nutrition labels more often. Their concern could lead to both behaviors even if reading a label didn't change what they ate. The two groups would still differ exactly as described.
What we’re looking for
The author instead makes label-reading the cause of the dietary difference. That might be right, but the correlation doesn't establish it. We haven't separated the effect of reading the label from the effect of already being health-conscious. The flaw answer should identify that unsupported move from two things occurring together to one producing the other.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The observed relationship is a correlation: label readers consume a lower proportion of fat calories than nonreaders do. The conclusion goes further and says reading the labels promotes the healthier behavior. Our health-consciousness example shows why that causal explanation doesn't follow just from the relationship.
We don't need to prove that label-reading has no benefit. We need to see that the evidence leaves open another explanation for the difference.
- B
Nothing identifies a sample that fails to represent the group being studied. A problem like studying only a narrow group and treating it as typical of everyone would need support in the passage. Here, even a perfectly accurate description of label readers and nonreaders would leave the causal question unresolved.
- C
The argument doesn't say that reading labels is required for healthy eating and then mistake that requirement for a guarantee. Its evidence is a difference between two groups, and its mistake is assigning a cause to that difference. This answer describes a different error.
- D
The author doesn't set out two possible explanations and treat them as the only options. The argument offers one causal explanation without adequately considering alternatives. Failing to consider other possibilities isn't the same as explicitly restricting the possibilities to two.
- E
The conclusion concerns what reading labels does, not what label readers intend to accomplish. Our alternative explanation brings up their possible motivation, but that is our objection. It isn't a conclusion the author draws from the consequences of their behavior.
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