Logical Reasoning

PT130 · S1 · Q9 People who need to reduce

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People who need to reduce their intake of fat and to consume fewer calories often turn to fat substitutes, especially those with zero calories such as N5.

Conclusion

N5 (a fat substitute) is of no use to people who need to eat less fat and fewer calories.

Evidence

In studies, people who ate foods prepared with N5 almost always felt hungrier after that than they would have had they eaten a meal with real fat. Because they were hungrier, they ate more food, which made the total calories about the same as if they had just eaten the real fat meal.

Evaluation

When authors make such extreme conclusions as "N5 is of no use to these people", all we have to do to strike back is point out some usefulness. Is there a way that N5 was in any way useful to people trying to reduce their fat intake and consume fewer calories?

Sure, it helped them reduce their fat intake! That was useful. It would be better if it accomplished both goals, but if you compare a meal with 500 calories and 10g of fat to a meal with 500 calories and 2g of fat, isn't the second one usefully better to you?

Goal

We need a way to argue that N5 could be useful to people who are trying to eat less fat and fewer calories. One potential answer might point out that in the study, even though the people ended up consuming the same calories as before, making meals with N5 was at least allowing them to eat less fat.

9.

The reasoning in the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument fails to consider the possibility that

  1. many foods cannot be prepared

    Too Weak / Opposite

    Since we're just debating whether N5 is useless or somewhat useful, it's not important whether it can be used to prepare all/not-all foods. We don't judge whether a tool is useful by asking, "Can I use this one tool to do all my household repairs?" This answer choice is also wrong because it goes with the author and strengthens the idea that N5 is useless.

    1% picked this

  2. N5 has mild but unpleasant

    Opposite / Too Weak

    This goes the wrong direction. It sounds like a negative about N5. Our goal is to argue that N5 is useful (a positive). Furthermore, mild but unpleasant side effects is not a strong enough idea to move the needle, even if this were pointing in the right direction.

    0% picked this

  3. not everyone who eats foods

    Too Weak / Out of Scope:

    "doesn't pay attention to calories" This is such a weak claim, saying that there's at least one person who eats N5 foods but doesn't pay attention to how many calories they're consuming (his name is Jeff). We should be highly suspicious that such a weak idea could have much impact. But Jeff is actually irrelevant, since the conclusion says "N5 is of no use to such people". What kind of people? People who do pay attention to their fat and caloric intake.

    5% picked this

  4. people who know N5 contains

    Irrelevant Comparison

    It doesn't matter to us which group of people eats more N5 than another. We have to establish that there's some usefulness to eating N5. Hearing about people who eat it a lot doesn't prove that it's actually useful when it comes to reducing fat or calories.

    11% picked this

  5. Correct

    the total fat intake of

    Why this is right

    This shows how eating N5 could be useful to people who need to reduce their intake of fat and calories. They could use N5 to reduce their fat intake for some meals (they would end up having a normal amount of calories at these meals). A partial victory is still a useful step forward. Maybe they can achieve a total victory by using N5 at some meals to lower their fat and using some other means at other meals to lower their calories.

    Skill tested: Flaw · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    82% picked this

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