Q20 - Calories consumed in excess

[Ndfan2373]

No one tried this question, so i wanna take a crack at explaining it.

The stem asks to resolve the discrepancy. Reading the stimulus, it seems the discrepancy is the idea that although alcoholic beverages are laden with calories, those who drink three or more alcoholic beverages, exceeding caloric intake necessary to gain weight, do not in general gain weight.

I prephrased this question by asking How come? Maybe the these calories are not stored in fat, but somewhere else. (hard question to prephrase an answer).

The answer choices:

(A) The stimulus explicitly states that these individuals exceed the caloric intake necessary to maintain their weight. Thus, this answer is wrong.

(C) Irrelevant, who cares about other people. I want to know why those that drink 3 or more alcoholic beverages do not gain weight.

(D) This is simply a regurgitation of info from the stimulus and does nothing to resolve the discrepancy.

(E) Irrelevant. The people we are concerned with DO take in more calories than necessary, we don't care about those individuals that do not exceed the caloric intake.

With 4 answers that were relatively easy to eliminate, i was only left with B.

(B) Correct Answer. This answer was not what I was expecting and caught me slightly off guard. But after rereading it, it does give a plausible explanation to why these individuals in particular do not gain weight.


I know this was an easy question, but i wanted to practice writing out explanations each question and figured this would be an easy one to start with. I would love any input and suggestions that would make my explanations more complete.

[tara_amber1]

Ndfan, thanks for putting up an explanation! However, I'm still confused to why B is the right answer. I was overconfident in picking A because it sounded plausible.

My thought process for A: "Well if Person X should consume 1600 calories a day, and they consume 500 of those calories with alcohol, they would compensate by only consume 1100 calories worth of food, thereby not exceeding caloric intake"

My thought process for B: "...tend to be dissipated as heat?! What kind of answer is that? Calories don't just burn off by taking shots or something, or at least I think they don't"

So you can see, I was a little bummed when I found out that B was the correct answer and I'm still not seeing how A is explicitly stated in the stimulus. Do you mind helping me out on this one a little bit more?

Thanks!

[Ndfan2373]

[quote="tara_amber1"]Ndfan, thanks for putting up an explanation! However, I'm still confused to why B is the right answer. I was overconfident in picking A because it sounded plausible.

My thought process for A: "Well if Person X should consume 1600 calories a day, and they consume 500 of those calories with alcohol, they would compensate by only consume 1100 calories worth of food, thereby not exceeding caloric intake"

My thought process for B: "...tend to be dissipated as heat?! What kind of answer is that? Calories don't just burn off by taking shots or something, or at least I think they don't"

So you can see, I was a little bummed when I found out that B was the correct answer and I'm still not seeing how A is explicitly stated in the stimulus. Do you mind helping me out on this one a little bit more?

Thanks!


I initially was tempted by choice a as well. But note that in the the stimulus it says that "people who regularly drink two or three alcoholic beverages a day and thereby exceed the caloric intake necessary to maintain their weight do not in general gain weight."

So we know these people DO exceed the caloric intake necessary, and thus answer A does not help answer why these individuals maintain their weight.

Answer B, albeit not a predictable answer, gives a *plausible* reason for this. The calories from alcohol simply dissipate as heat! (wouldn't that be nice )

[maryadkins]

Good discussion! And great explanation up top! Thank you for it.

Yes, if (B) tells us that the calories are dissipated as heat, well, weird as that may sound, we take it at face value. If the excess calories disappear somehow, we don't care how! We're told they disappear. Boom. That's the one that resolves it.

As for the explanation up top, everything looks great but I'd add one slight nuance to (D). (D) doesn't just regurgitate info from the stimulus. The stimulus is about people who drink 2-3 drinks a day. (D) is about people who drink more than 3. It just piles on more information to add to the discrepancy, not to resolve it, so it's still very much wrong.