Q2 - Nutritionist: Recently a craze has

[mymansupa]

How is (A) the corrrect answer? It just seems like (A) totally did not pay attention to anything the Nutritionist said... I chose (C) because when the Nutritionist said "save your money" I thought (C) would be a direct counter of that statement to weaken the argument.. but as I am typing I guess (A) is a stronger counter because of the case the Nutritionist put up as far as the separation and the last sentence... Please calrify... Thanks

[cyruswhittaker]

The nutritionist believes that people should not buy the juicers. The reason she uses is that there isn't any indication that there are differences in the properties between juice and when the pulp isn't seperated (in other words she seems to be implying no difference between the juice properties and just eating the fruit/vegetable).

But what if that isn't the only reason for people to use the juicers? She seems to be assuming that because of this one reason, people shouldn't buy the juicers. Choice (A) attacks this assumption by making it questionable; it provides evidence to show that people might still derive other benefits from using the juicers that they could not get from eating the fruits/vegetables: it's easier for them to actually eat their fruits and veggies.

Choice (C) doesn't weaken the argument because it is out of scope. It tries to weaken the argument by showing that to a lot of people, the money wouldn't even be a big deal. But the author doesn't care about the relative expense of the juicer; she cares about whether one should buy it, based on the reasoning provided. Even if the juicer cost $1, the author could still claim that it is not worth the money because the reasoning used is about the properties of the juice w/o pulp compared to when it is unseperated. Thus, the relative cost is out-of-scope to the reasoning employed, and so it would not attack the strength of the argument.

[mymansupa]

Perfect... got it... thanks a bunch

[indyyork]

I do agree with your responds, however, the prompt of answer A through me off when the they use the word Most people, instead of Some people! can you or anyone help me understand why in this case works to be the correct answer Please!

Thank you.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

I do agree with your responds, however, the prompt of answer A through me off when the they use the word Most people, instead of Some people! can you or anyone help me understand why in this case works to be the correct answer Please!

That answer choice (A) makes the claim true for "most" people is actually a positive characteristic of the answer choice. The stronger the claim, the more we have to consider it's impact. If it were only true that "some" people found it easier to consume fruits and vegetables in liquid form, then the nutritionist's argument that one should not bother buying a juicer would be less affected than if it were true that "most" people found it easier to consume fruits and vegetables in liquid form.

Hope that helps!

[indyyork]

Thanks for replying! I found your explanation helpful for this kind of questions. So in my interpretation of this is that soft language will not have enough impact for Weaken or Strengthen questions.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Exactly. Though remember to stay flexible. It'd be a bad idea to simply cross off all the soft/weak answer choices on a Strengthen/Weaken question automatically. The LSAT is tricky and will find ways to make soft/weak answer choices correct occasionally.

Use the strength of an answer choice as a means of eliminating when you have to decide between answer choices that look good.

[WaltGrace1983]

I'll break this one down from top to bottom because I liked it so much! This is a weaken question.

No indication that justice separated from the pulp has any properties it doesn't have when not separated
→
Save your money ("Don't buy/There is no reason to buy a juicer")

This argument is pretty weak. Just because the properties of the fruits/vegetables are going to be the same whether they are in a juice-form or in their original form doesn't mean that a juicer is a waste of money! There are many reasons why people like to juice their food! Perhaps they like the taste better (juice probably tastes a bit more sugary), perhaps it is less messy (I hate when my hands get sticky from eating an apple), or maybe they just want to look super cool with their juice (eating whole fruits and veggies is so 20th century). The point is, the argument just assumes that there is one reason to use/buy a juicer - to get something different out of the fruit/veggies. When the juicer fails to do this, the author just assumes that there is therefore no reason to buy the juicer!

(A) This gives a distinct benefit to the juicer! People find it easier to consume the fruits/veggies in liquid form! Awesome. So why wouldn't we want to buy the juicer then? This seems to really weaken that argument.

(B) Juice doesn't contain fiber → juice is less healthy than whole fruit. This actually strengthens the argument. It gives a reason NOT to buy/use a juicer: it isn't as healthy as eating the whole fruit! So why would we buy a juicer?

(C) Yea but, as mentioned, it doesn't matter how much a juicer would hurt one's piggy bank. Something can be not that big of a deal to buy (a pack of gum for $0.72 for example), but still be a bad deal (what if that pack of gum for $0.72 had razor blades in it?).

(D) This is like the opposite of an ad hominem argument. However, being an expert of the field (if you could consider the nutritionist an expert to begin with) doesn't validate or invalidate any argument. Thus, this just simply doesn't weaken (or strengthen mind you).

(E) Vitamin pills?! Now we are talking crazy here.