A recent taste test reveals

Answer choices

1. A

   Weakens, if anything2% picked this

   Most people prefer full-fat chocolate ice cream to full-fat vanilla

   This answer is about full-fat ice cream, so it's not really helping us to investigate whether complexity of flavor is an effective way to mask the changed taste of a low-fat alternative. If anything, this might sound like an Alternate Explanation for the curious fact: "they didn't prefer low-fat chocolate more than low-fat vanilla because the complexity masked the fat-less flavor; they preferred it because people just love chocolate so much that they'll be happy with any version of it."

   2%
2. B

   Weaker than Correct Answer10% picked this

   The subjects of the previous tests were not informed of the difference

   This does strengthen somewhat, because it rules out the alternative explanation that people disliked the low-fat vanilla because they were warned in advance that it was low-fat (and so they mentally prepared themselves to hate it .... much in the same way if you told someone the glass of wine you poured came from a $100 bottle, they would prime their palate to love it). But if you're trying to say, "The killer was Johnny", it has less strengthening effect to rule out an alternate explanation ("the killer wasn't Tanya") than it does to increase the plausibility of your explanation ("Johnny had a motive and a murder weapon"). Similarly, this answer has less impact than an answer that positively nudges us in favor of believing the complexity storyline.

   10%
3. C

   Unclear Impact18% picked this

   The more distinct compounds required to produce a flavor, the better

   Which has more distinct compounds: vanilla or chocolate? We don't know. We were never told. So we have no way to know the potential impact of this answer on the conversation.

   18%
4. D

   Correct69% picked this

   Vanilla is known to be a significantly less complex flavor

   Why this is right

   This is establishing an assumption that is heavily insinuated but never said: chocolate is a more complex flavor than vanilla. These Assumes a Difference arguments are annoying in the sense that the assumption is so obvious that it's hard to make your brain realize it was an assumption. For example, "Tony is debating between buying a Prius and a Leaf. He should buy the Prius, since it has a bluetooth stereo." What's being assumed? (among other things), the Leaf does not have a bluetooth stereo. On Strengthen, Weaken, and Paradox (question stems asking, "Which answer, if it's true, does the most ..."), we love to see strong wording in our answer, so significantly less complex is very lovable.

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

   69%
5. E

   No Impact1% picked this

   Most people are aware of the chemical complexities of

   It doesn't really make a difference to this argument whether most people are aware or unaware of the chemical complexity. And if we're told they are aware of the chemical complexity, does that mean they like it? Does that mean that the complexity is effective at disguising the low-fat aftertaste? We were never told that people like complexity. We can't really argue, "when they try low-fat chocolate, most of them are aware how chemically complex chocolate is ..... and that's why they don't mind the low-fat version?"

   1%