PrepTest 156, Section 2, Question 9
Editorialist: Evidence shows that restrictions on tobacco advertising(68 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the editorialist's(12 more words not shown)
- Afails to consider(20 more words not shown)
- Buses evidence that(17 more words not shown)
- Creaches a conclusion(14 more words not shown)
- Dneglects to take(20 more words not shown)
- Efails to consider(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Maybe people stopped smoking because cigarettes became expensive. Or because they learned more about the health risks. Or because smoking stopped seeming cool. Those possibilities matter because the editorialist wants to credit advertising restrictions for the decline.
The timing fits that story: major restrictions began ten years ago, and the largest decline occurred during those ten years. But the timing could also fit other changes that affected people's decisions. The opening claim may initially sound like a fact we're being given; the rest of the paragraph reveals that it's the conclusion the survey and timing are supposed to support.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw question, accept the decline and challenge its explanation. We needn't argue that advertising can never influence anyone. We need to ask whether this evidence separates the effect of advertising restrictions from other possible causes of reduced smoking.
Working the answers
- A
The argument's conclusion concerns smoking among adults. A change in teenage smoking doesn't, without some further connection, explain what caused the adult decline. The editorialist isn't making a claim about every age group.
- B
A percentage of the adult population is a statistic describing that population; it isn't automatically evidence drawn from only an unrepresentative part of it. This answer would fit something like 'Adults in Alaska smoke less, so adults everywhere must smoke less.' The editorialist makes no such move. The question is what caused the measured percentage to fall.
- C
We have a recent survey, and the comparison tracks changes during the last ten or twenty years. That isn't the same as using only an old statistic to describe today's adults. Comparing the present with the past is necessary to establish a decline; the unsupported step comes when the editorialist assigns its cause.
- D
Restrictions on advertisements for some other product don't automatically bear on tobacco use. We aren't given a connection between those other restrictions and adult smoking. This question is about why smoking declined, not whether tobacco was the only product subject to advertising rules.
- ECorrect
Other factors might have contributed to the decline. Higher prices, changed attitudes, or greater awareness of health consequences could help explain the same trend. The editorialist treats the timing of the restrictions as if it established their significant impact without addressing those alternatives.
This doesn't prove that the restrictions had no effect. It shows why the offered evidence doesn't isolate their effect well enough to establish the explanation confidently.
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