Q4 - People who consume a lot

[tommywallach]

Hey Joseph,

Really good question, and I can help.

Resolve the Paradox questions always fit a very common pattern. They present two pieces of information that seem to contradict. The correct answer needs to address BOTH of them. Most of the wrong answers (and ALL of the tricky wrong answers) will address ONE side of the problem really well, but it will fail in terms of addressing the other side. Make sure your answer choice explains BOTH parts.

The Paradox:

Piece 1: People who eat lots of honey have fewer cavities.

Piece 2: Sugar causes cavities and honey is sugar.

The Answers:

A) All this says is the folks eating lots of sugar don't get more sugar. But we don't explain why they don't get cavities!

B) Again, this doesn't show why the dissolved honey/sugar wouldn't give cavities.

C) This doesn't connect to the honey part (but it does relate a bit to cavities, as the implication is that dental hygiene is also relevant to cavities and prevention).

D) Other health problems are out of scope.

E) This explains how you could eat lots of honey and actually have fewer cavities, so both parts of the paradox are addressed.

Let me know if that makes sense!

-t


#officialexplanation

[joseph.k.hach]

Hi,

Although this was an early question in the section, it gave me a little trouble. I quickly narrowed it down to A and E, but I was not able to decide why one was better than the other, and I was especially not able to mark one off as incorrect.

After reading the prompt, I anticipated an answer dealing with honey eaters consuming the majority of their sugar through honey, and not other sources, so A) looked appealing. I marked it proceeded to the other questions.

E) looked very promising, but I thought the insertion of "tooth decay" was meant to throw us off the scent. How can we assume that tooth decay causes cavities? The prompt hints at this, or at least that there is some correlation, but I thought this was problematic.

Thanks in advance