PrepTest 142, Section 4, Question 1
Ming: Since trans fat is particularly unhealthy, it's(33 more words not shown)
Carol's response indicates that she(6 more words not shown)
- Athe more trans(9 more words not shown)
- Bfood that doesn't(6 more words not shown)
- Cif a food(7 more words not shown)
- Da cookie containing(7 more words not shown)
- Econsumers should purchase(9 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Healthier doesn't have to mean healthy.
Removing an especially unhealthy ingredient sounds like a step in the right direction. I'd still want to know what replaces it. If the replacement created an equally serious problem, removing trans fat might not help. But that isn't Carol's objection. She says the cookies still aren't healthy.
So what? A cookie could be less unhealthy than it used to be and still be a dessert we shouldn't mistake for a balanced meal. Ming calls the change fortunate for consumers; Ming never says cookies have become health food.
What we’re looking for
The question asks how Carol understood Ming. Work backward from what Carol is denying: she seems to think Ming called food without trans fat healthy. That stronger claim gives her something to attack, but it misses the distinction between an improvement and a completely healthy product.
Working the answers
- A
Carol isn't challenging a comparison between cookies with different amounts of trans fat. She's pointing out that cookies remain unhealthy even after trans fat is gone. A doesn't capture the claim her response is aimed at.
- BCorrect
Carol responds as though Ming said that removing trans fat makes food healthy. Her reply—desserts still aren't healthy—makes sense as a rejection of that claim. Ming's actual statement leaves room for a smaller benefit: cookies might become healthier without becoming healthy food.
- C
This is a general claim about how we classify food. Carol's objection doesn't depend on Ming having a particular definition of 'unhealthy.' It depends on Carol hearing a claim that the cookies are now healthy. C leaves out the removal of trans fat that prompted the exchange.
- D
This concerns cookies that contain trans fat. Carol responds about cookies without it. Saying that trans fat makes a cookie unhealthy doesn't say that removing it eliminates every other reason the cookie might be unhealthy.
- E
Ming doesn't tell consumers which cookies to buy, and Carol doesn't answer a purchasing recommendation. Both discuss the health implications of removing an ingredient. E introduces a rule for consumer behavior that the exchange never supplies.
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