PrepTest 155, Section 4, Question 2
Brian: I used to eat cheeseburgers from fast-food(67 more words not shown)
The reasoning in Brian's argument(6 more words not shown)
- Atreats a statement(11 more words not shown)
- Bdraws a conclusion(10 more words not shown)
- Ctreats a condition(20 more words not shown)
- Dconcludes that one(22 more words not shown)
- Econcludes that making(21 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Brian changed much more than whether bread and meat appeared on the same plate. He stopped eating fast-food cheeseburgers almost every day and started eating lean meats, fruits, and vegetables. Then he felt better, and his blood pressure and cholesterol went down. Good for Brian. But which part of that change produced the improvement?
Maybe he is eating less fat. Maybe he is consuming fewer calories. Maybe some other feature of the new foods matters. Those are possibilities to consider, not facts we've been given about his meals. They show why we can't single out the bread-and-meat combination just because Brian read a warning about it.
What we’re looking for
Even if changing his diet caused the improvement, that wouldn't establish Brian's particular explanation. He changed several things together and then credited just one of them. For the flaw question, that's the mistake we want the answer to describe.
Working the answers
- A
We aren't given a self-appointed expert. Brian says he read a claim about digestion, but we don't know who made it or what qualifications that person claimed. More importantly, Brian doesn't rely merely on someone else's assertion. He offers his improved health as evidence. The problem is what that evidence can establish.
- B
Brian doesn't just say, 'Eating bread with meat is unhealthy because eating bread with meat is unhealthy.' He gives us a change in his health after a change in his diet. That is evidence separate from the conclusion, even though it doesn't isolate the cause he identifies. Poor support isn't the same as simply repeating the conclusion.
- C
This would involve confusing something an effect requires with something that guarantees the effect. But Brian hasn't presented a rule such as 'You must reduce calories to achieve this result' and then treated reducing calories as a guarantee. His mistake is selecting one cause from several things he changed.
- DCorrect
Avoiding bread and meat together was one part of the dietary change. Switching to lean meats, fruits, and vegetables changed other features of his meals too. The improvement might have come from those other changes, such as less fat or fewer calories. Brian hasn't ruled that out, so the results don't prove the combination itself was unhealthy.
- E
There is no claim about what happens to most people. That mistake would look like, 'Most people get healthier on this diet, so this diet improved my health.' Brian instead reports what happened to him and uses that experience to blame a particular part of his old diet.
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