PT151 S3 Q20 ExplanationThe level of triglycerides in the blood

Answer choices, explained

1. A

   No Impact25% picked this

   People with a high-fat diet who engage in regular, vigorous physical activity are much less likely to develop heart disease than are

   If we had evidence of high-fat diets being correlated with lower risk of heart disease, that would weaken the plausibility of the author's conclusion. But this answer doesn't say "people on high fat diets have a lower risk than those who aren't on such diets". It compares groups with two differences: "high-fat + heavy exercise" vs. "low-fat + little exercise". We can't draw any good conclusions when there are two variables changing. Which of the two variables accounts for the difference?

   25%
2. B

   No Impact3% picked this

   Triglyceride levels above 2 milligrams per milliliter increase the risk of some serious illnesses not

   This conclusion is only about heart disease, so talking about other serious illnesses is pretty irrelevant. If anything, though, this answer may strengthen the plausibility of the author's causal story a little, insofar as it would show an example of high blood triglyceride increasing (i.e. influencing) the risk of other illnesses.

   3%
3. C

   No Impact3% picked this

   Shortly after a person ceases to regularly consume alcohol and processed sugar, that person’s triglyceride

   This doesn't strengthen or weaken, but it's very compatible with what we already heard. We know that consuming alcohol and processed sugar are known to increase triglyceride levels in the blood, so we would expect that if you ceased regularly consuming these things, your triglyceride levels would go down.

   3%
4. D

   Correct68% picked this

   Heart disease interferes with the body’s ability to

   Why this is right

   This does what we expect Weaken correct answers to do when an author presents a correlation and assumes one possible causal explanation for it: it provides an Alternate Explanation for the correlation. This is the Reverse Cause explanation. High blood triglyceride isn't correlated with heart disease / heart attacks because the high blood triglyceride causes the heart disease. Instead, this answer suggests, they're correlated because heart disease causes the high blood triglycerides. After all, heart disease causes the body trouble with metabolizing triglycerides, and the first sentence tells us that when we can't metabolize triglycerides, it raises our blood triglyceride level.

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

   68%
5. E

   No Impact1% picked this

   People who maintain strict regimens for their health tend to adopt low-fat diets and to avoid

   If anything, this very mildly strengthens the author's case by corroborating that avoiding fat / alcohol / sugar is associated with health. But what people tend to do for their health doesn't really help us analyze whether these substances specifically impact heart disease risk.

   1%