Logical Reasoning

PT130 · S4 · Q10 Nutritionists believe that

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Nutritionists believe that a person's daily requirement for vitamins can readily be met by eating five servings of fruits and vegetables daily.

Conclusion (thus)

Most people need to take vitamin pills.

Evidence

Most people eat far less than the five servings of fruits/veggies per day that nutritionists say would get them to their daily requirement for vitamins.

Evaluation

Anytime we have a problem to solve (getting our daily requirement of vitamins) and an author says "You need to do X", he's assuming two things: 1. X would actually be an effective solution 2. There aren't any other possible ways to solve the problem

Goal

We could attack the argument by saying that vitamin pills wouldn't be a viable solution for getting our daily requirement, or we could attack it by coming up with some other way for people to get their daily vitamins.

10.

Which one of the following statements, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

  1. Even five servings of fruits

    Irrelevant Distinct

    This is trying to weaken the advice of nutritionists. We need to weaken this author's argument about vitamin pills.

    4% picked this

  2. Certain commonly available fruits and

    Irrelevant Distinct

    What does this have to do with vitamin pills, or with an alternate way for most people to get their daily vitamins?

    8% picked this

  3. Nutritionists sometimes disagree on how

    Too Weak /Irrelevant

    "Sometimes" is almost always too weak to be correct on Strengthen/Weaken. Not to mention, what does this have to do with vitamin pills or with an alternate way to get our daily vitamins?

    4% picked this

  4. Correct

    Many commonly consumed foods that

    Why this is right

    This gives us a way to argue that we don't need to take vitamin pills. After all, we could just eat meat or grains or carbs that are fortified with vitamins. The argument never said that most people weren't getting their daily vitamins. It said that most people weren't eating the five servings of fruits/veggies that would get them their vitamins. This answer suggests an alternate way to get daily vitamins (which people may already be doing): having a couple servings of fruit/veggies and a couple servings of fortified foods that also contain these vitamins.

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

    74% picked this

  5. Fruits and vegetables are also

    Out of Scope: "fiber"

    This sounds like a little bit of knock against vitamin pills, but it's irrelevant. We're only concerned with getting our daily vitamins. Fiber might be a bonus, but it's out of scope to why this author thinks we need vitamin pills.

    10% picked this

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