Columnist: People should avoid using a certain artificial

[NitinG177]

hello Ron ,
I have a doubt pertaining to choice B of this question.

(B) Whether the vitamins that the artificial fat absorbs are present in foods that contain the fat

The condensed argument that you made is this :

fat absorbs vitamins that are essential.
therefore, body doesn't get vitamins.
therefore, bad news.

Now, this whole problem will persist ONLY when the food is replaced with this artificial fat ( because only then will the problem of vitamin absorption exist).
If the answer to choice B is: the vitamins absorbed by this artificial fat are never actually present in the food that contains artificial fat.

The stem also states this : [Although the artificial fat, which can be used in place of fat in food preparation .... from this , we can infer that
this artificial fat would only be used in the food which contains at least some fat originally ]

So doesn't it also attack the second "therefore" ,because now we are sure that this artificial fat , though absorbs vitamins, will never have any impact on the vitamin content of the naturally containing fat food ?
( to state it in simple language , how can the artificial fat absorb that which does not even exist ??)
Please let me know as to what am i missing here?
Thanks

[RonPurewal]

in context it should be clear that the artificial fat 'absorbs vitamins' FROM THE BODY (not from the original foods).

if this is unclear, then just think about each possibility in turn. does the artificial chemical...
...1/ somehow leach the vitamins out of whole, undigested foods (during the process of cooking)?
...2/ leach the vitamins from the body AFTER the foods are digested?
if you think about it, only #2 makes sense. you can't get the nutrients out of a food without breaking down the food!

--

on top of that, if #1 were the intended meaning then the author would HAVE to give more details. (e.g., 'the artificial fat absorbs vitamins from foods that are cooked in it at sufficiently high temperatures').
without such details, interpretation #1 implies that the fat just sucks the vitamins out of foods by pure magic, whenever you let the two get near each other. that's not reasonable.

[ShriramC110]

Hi Ron,

That was a great explanation btw!!!
I had a doubt regarding b, but now cleared!!!!!

Ron,
Btw i am having a huge trouble with CR problems,
I am able to solve questions of 600 level difficulty with 90% accuracy,but whenver i come across tough questions which requires a little more reasoning, i land up choosing a absurd choice(Out of scope).
Can you give any piece of advise for this problem.?

Thanks

[tim]

One approach would be to just let some of those super-tough problems go. But if you want to learn how to be more successful at them, the key is in the review process. After you're done answering a set of questions, set aside 3-5 minutes for every question to review, whether you got the question right or wrong. Then focus on really understanding what makes each wrong answer wrong. The more thoroughly you analyze the wrong answers and figure out what the GMAT does to create wrong answers, the easier it will be to avoid picking wrong answers on the test.

[RonPurewal]

for the problems you truly find challenging, '3-5 minutes' is not nearly enough.

when you review a CR problem that you found truly challenging, you should do ALL of the following:

• Make an analogy for the problem.
if you've read any decent number of my posts on here, you'll notice that i very rarely discuss CR problems by talking about the actual problems themselves—i almost always create analogies to facilitate understanding. if a CR problem is hard, the difficulty ALWAYS comes from the specific content/words/topic, and NEVER comes from 'logic' or 'structure'.
if you spend the time to come up with a GOOD analogy—something that may take quite a while—you may find that it becomes trivially easy to understand how the original problem works.

• Specify exactly why the wrong answers are wrong.
remember, ALL of the wrong answers are COMPLETELY wrong. if you think that one of the wrong answers is just 'worse than the correct answer', then, nope—more review is in order.

• if you think you've discovered some sort of pattern, explore other problems for it.
e.g., i wrote this post an hour or two ago, about 'if':
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... ml#p117071
the student who asked this question—and YOU, if you find the same issue challenging—should now look for the 'if' pattern in OTHER problems.
by doing so, you'll be able to...
...see whether it's a real pattern; (if the 'pattern' is broken by other problems then it's not a patern, and you're back to the drawing board)
...see how frequently it (or similar stuff) is tested;
...cement your understanding.

this process could easily take over an hour for a single problem. but, remember, the name of the game is quality, not quantity.

[ShriramC110]

Wohhh!!!
That was great Ron
Thanks a ton!!!

[tim]

Yeah, and Ron's exactly right. If you're not already used to setting aside 3-5 minutes per problem for review, start there, and once you really internalize how important this process is, you will end up devoting MUCH more time to reviewing certain problems. This will always be better for you in the long run than rushing into the next problem.

[huaw144]

Hi, I hope to revive the discussion on this problem as I am having some trouble ruling out B as the correct answer.

A - Correct answer. I get it, answering yes/no definitely strengthen/weaken the conclusion as one of the answer essentially provides a way of circumventing the drawback of artificial fat, (if vitamin absorption can be compensated by supplements, you can take artificial fat without the negative effect of getting less vitamins overall)

B - My problem is with B. If vitamins absorbed by the artificial fat are already in the artificial fat food, then you are essentially eating artificial fat foods without vitamin. And your body, on a net basis, is certainly not losing vitamins as the vitamins absorbed are supplemented/negated by the extra vitamins already provided in the artificial fat. If the answer is no, then artificial fat will absorb vitamins already in your body, so on a net basis, you are losing vitamins, which is bad.... Essentially if the answer is Yes, then you are body is NOT losing vitamins from eating the artificial fat. If the answer is NO, then your body is losing vitamins as artificial fat food doesn't contain vitamins, meaning the fat must find vitamins in your body. Thus on a net basis you are losing vitamins.

I guess B also leaves many room for different interpretations... the answer to B could be yes, but the artificial fat will not only absorb vitamin already in the food but also absorb vitamins also in your body.

Also, am I interpreting B right? My understanding is that it is asking whether the artificial fat itself contains vitamin that will/is absorbed by the artificial fat...

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

Well done for thinking through the scenario in some detail: imagining the consequences of a situation is one of the keys to getting good at CR.

However, take care not to introduce extra assumptions in your reasoning. Answer B states 'Whether the vitamins that the artificial fat absorbs are present in foods that contain the fat'. Let's consider the 'no' case: the vitamins that the fat absorbs are not present in foods that contain the fat. You state that the consequence will be 'the fat must find vitamins in your body'. We don't know this to be true. Perhaps the fat only absorbs vitamins when it's being cooked or prepared. Perhaps the fat won't come into contact with vitamins in the body. So we don't know whether this will have an effect on vitamin consumption without some more information.

[Gui]

you need to boil the columnist's position down to its essence, which is basically this:
fat absorbs vitamins that are essential.
therefore, body doesn't get vitamins.
therefore, bad news.

the second 'therefore' here is unassailable (it's definitely bad news if your body doesn't get vitamins), so the only thing that might sway the argument in one direction or the other is the first 'therefore'. if we could break the connection between absorption of vitamins and robbing the body of vitamins, then we could possibly destroy the argument.

choice a breaks the connection, because it introduces the possibility that the body might get the vitamins anyway, despite the absorption of some of those vitamins by the fat.

b is irrelevant, as it doesn't matter where the vitamins come from (only whether they're properly absorbed)

c is irrelevant, as the possible dangers of low-fat diets don't affect the above line of reasoning (the dangers of the artificial fat) at all

d is irrelevant: which foods can contain the artificial fat has nothing to do with whether it will rob the body of vitamins

e is irrelevant: taste has no bearing on the discussion at hand

hope that helps.

Hi, I got a different version of question (look below), in matter of fact, just answer choice B is different and it was the one I picked. Can someone explain why alternative B is wrong? Many Tks!

GmatPrep - Exam Pack 2 - Exam 5 - Question 2 - OA: A

Columnist: People should completely avoid using a certain artificial fat that has been touted as an alternative for those whose medical advisers have advised them to reduce their fat intake. The artificial fat can be used in place of ordinary fats in prepared foods and has none of the negative health effects of fat, but it does have a serious drawback: it absorbs certain essential vitamins, thereby preventing them from being used by the body.

In evaluating the columnist’s position, it would be most useful to determine which of the following?

A) Whether increasing one’s intake of the vitamins can compensate for the effects of the artificial fat

B) Whether any of the vitamins that the artificial fat absorbs are destroyed by prolonged cooking

C) Whether having an extremely low fat intake for an extended period can endanger a person’s health

D) Whether there are any foods that cannot be prepared using the artificial fat as a substitute for other fats

E) Whether people are generally able to detect differences in taste between foods prepared using the artificial fat and foods that are similar except for the use of other fats

[Chelsey Cooley]

Hi, I got a different version of question (look below), in matter of fact, just answer choice B is different and it was the one I picked. Can someone explain why alternative B is wrong? Many Tks!

GmatPrep - Exam Pack 2 - Exam 5 - Question 2 - OA: A

Columnist: People should completely avoid using a certain artificial fat that has been touted as an alternative for those whose medical advisers have advised them to reduce their fat intake. The artificial fat can be used in place of ordinary fats in prepared foods and has none of the negative health effects of fat, but it does have a serious drawback: it absorbs certain essential vitamins, thereby preventing them from being used by the body.

In evaluating the columnist’s position, it would be most useful to determine which of the following?

A) Whether increasing one’s intake of the vitamins can compensate for the effects of the artificial fat

B) Whether any of the vitamins that the artificial fat absorbs are destroyed by prolonged cooking

C) Whether having an extremely low fat intake for an extended period can endanger a person’s health

D) Whether there are any foods that cannot be prepared using the artificial fat as a substitute for other fats

E) Whether people are generally able to detect differences in taste between foods prepared using the artificial fat and foods that are similar except for the use of other fats

Suppose that the vitamins are destroyed by prolonged cooking. In general, using the artificial fat is still bad. If it's used in foods that aren't cooked for a long time, it hurts the absorption of those vitamins.

Suppose that the vitamins aren't destroyed by prolonged cooking. In this case, using the artificial fat is still bad. In any food, it hurts the absorption of vitamins.

Since neither side weakens the argument (that is, neither side suggests that the artificial fat is actually okay), this isn't a good 'evaluate' answer.

You may be thinking that if prolonged cooking destroys the vitamins anyways, then using the artificial fat shouldn't matter either way. However, this would only be a fair argument if we knew for sure that people were cooking their food for a long time. As it stands, it's comparable to saying 'well, some foods don't have those vitamins at all, so using the artificial fat must not matter'. That's not a fair argument, because using the artificial fat still has a net negative effect, for the reasons described in the argument.