Logical Reasoning

PT135 · S4 · Q10 In trying to reduce the amount

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In trying to reduce the amount of fat in their diet, on average people have decreased their consumption of red meat by one-half in the last two decades.

Given that ...

Over the last two decades, people trying to reduce the amount of fat in their diet have decreased their red meat consumption by 50%.

How can it be that ...

Those people who reduced their consumption of red meat are actually consuming more fat than those who didn't.

Evaluate / Goal

The people who wanted to reduce fat in their diet are eating less red meat. (I guess red meat has fat in it, or so they think.) But in reducing the amount of red meat they eat, they are somehow ending up with more fat in their diet.

So something else must have changed that is putting more fat in their diet.

We need to know what's different about the reduced-meat crowd vs. the regular-meat crowd that is putting more fat into the former group's diet.

10.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy described above?

Many more people have reduced
Unrelated to Goal
We're out here hunting for a reason why the reduced-meat group suddenly has more fat in their diet. This doesn't say anything about fat.
0% picked this
Higher prices over the last
Unrelated to Goal
We're out here hunting for a reason why the reduced-meat group suddenly has more fat in their diet. This doesn't say anything about fat.
1% picked this
People who reduce their consumption
Too Weak
This answer can help us explain why the reduced-meat crowd would have comparable fat in their diet to the regular-meat crowd. Maybe there's not much fat in red meat, so getting rid of red meat doesn't eliminate much fat. And in all other respects their diets are similar, so they end up consuming about as much fat as the regular-meat crowd. But that's not our job. We need to explain how the reduced-meat crowd has substantially more fat in their diet, not comparable amounts of fat.
23% picked this
Correct
People who reduce their consumption
Why this is right
This helps us explain why the reduced-meat group has more fat in their diet than the regular-meat group. When you reduce your meat consumption, you tend to replace it with things that are even richer in fat then the meat you were previously eating.
Skill tested: Paradox · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
75% picked this
Studies have shown that red
Too Weak
Similar to (C), the most charitable version of this answer choice would only help explain why the reduced-meat group doesn't have significantly lower amounts of fat in their diet. It would be suggesting "getting rid of meat doesn't really get rid of that much fat". But we need a mechanism for explaining why the reduced-meat people have way more fat than the people who are still eating meat. Finally, this answer does not actually say that "getting rid of meat doesn't really get rid of that much fat". It just says that we now realize meat doesn't have quite as much fat as we previously thought. But if we previously thought it had 20g of fat per serving, and now we think it really only has 19g of fat per serving (slightly less than previously thought), then getting rid of meat in out diet would still be getting rid of 19g of fat!
1% picked this

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