Q5 - Lactose, a sugar found

[todavidzheng]

Hi,

Could someone please help to explain why answer choice A is not correct?

I can see C can resolve the paradox by providing an alternative way to aid the absorption of calcium, but doesn't A also adjust the paradox by saying there is another way to get lactose for people lack of milk?

I am really confused on this one...

Thank you.

[tamwaiman]

Hi,

Could someone please help to explain why answer choice A is not correct?

I can see C can resolve the paradox by providing an alternative way to aid the absorption of calcium, but doesn't A also adjust the paradox by saying there is another way to get lactose for people lack of milk?

I am really confused on this one...

Thank you.

Since the stimulus tells us that the inhabitants of these areas lose the ability to absorb lactose, so it's futile to take tablets instead.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Perfect. Couldn't have said it better myself!

For those who might come back with questions on any of the other answer choices let me just run through them.

The question asks us to resolve the paradoxical findings about bone loss and the inability of some to absorb lactose - a sugar that helps absorb calcium (which is needed for bone repair). Just because those inhabitants do not get calcium from lactose doesn't mean they do not get calcium. Answer choice (C) resolves how these inhabitants get calcium even without the benefit of lactose.

(A) is irrelevant. See tamwaiman's explanation.
(B) doesn't explain why people living in tropical areas have good bone development.
(D) increases dairy slightly and wouldn't matter unless lactose is found in other forms of dairy product other than milk - though not sure I know what those might be! And still doesn't matter because these folks have lost the ability to absorb lactose as tamwaiman pointed out.
(E) doesn't resolve the apparent paradox about why these inhabitants have good bone development.

[shaynfernandez]

I originally chose C because it provides an alternative way for the tropic inhabitants to absorbe calcium need for bone repair.
I switched to B because I thought it resolved two of the paradoxes, why tropics didn't have more if a problem with bone repair and why nontropics didn't have more if a problem.

With B we get that both locations lost milk, well if both locations lost milk wouldn't that resolve on basis of this reasoning why one didn't have less problems with bone repair?

Also, I found these answer choices more tempting than originally implied.

A. Says those in the tropics use tablets to ABSORB calcium.
C. Provides sunlight as a means of receiving the necessary amount of calcium.

The explanation that "a premise says we can't absorb calcium" seems to be a contradictory explanation for favoring A and Eliminating C.
Sure, C is about the body producing Vit D which AIDS in absorbing calcium, but its absorbing nonetheless. That's why C looked great to me at first glance, but it seemed to be very similar to A and it's typical of the evil LSAT writers to discredit an answer like this simply based on any evidence of absorbing when it counters a premise.

D. Was the easiest for me to eliminate because it requires the assumption that these Dairy products actually contain lactose or something to make up for the calcium deficiency.

E. I eliminated at first glance and the saw the implied alternate cause which would be an answer to weaken the reasoning not resolve.

Stuck between A,B and C I used my information from the past, that resolve questions account for both phenomena.

Because A and C can it both be correct, yet seemingly contained the same type of reasoning that a premise seems to inhibit I chose B.

If both trops and non tropics don't have milk that would explain why neither has any more problems with bone repair. Logically, someone could have extreme problems with bone repair and still not have more of a problem with bone repair than another.

In short the paradox seems to quantify and compare two groups to each other. From my understand if an argument or even fact set compares two groups and asks us to account for why one isn't better or worse off than another, we have the option to strengthen or make one group more or less likely or do so with the other group as well.

By analogy.

Nike walking shoes decrease the amount of strain on ones feet.
Country X has never sold Nike walking shoes, while country Z has shown walking shoes. However, samples show country X is no more likely to have feet strain than country Z.

We could resolve by showing that Country X has an alternate means for decreasing feet strain by means other than Nike walking shoes.

OR

We could show that Country Z has recently undergone a significant economic disaster significantly limiting citizens purchasing and implementing walking shoe use.

That's extremely long and I am sorry but I don't understand why we are favoring option one over option two?

[WaltGrace1983]

I am not sure if I completely understand everything you are saying, shaynfernandez, but I will try to offer some more explanation for others who will see this thread and for myself as I haphazardly chose (A) here. Let's break this down.

Milk has lactose, lactose aids in absorption of calcium
+
You need calcium for bone repair

However...

People in tropical areas have shortages of milk and cannot absorb lactose - unlike people in nontropical areas

Paradox: People in tropical areas don't have any more problems with bone repair than people in nontropical areas

In many ways, that second premise about how tropical areas have little milk and the inability to absorb lactose, is the key to understanding the stimulus. We know that (1) milk is good for absorbing calcium and (2) we know that lactose is good for absorbing calcium.

Absorbing calcium is important! Why? Because it is necessary for bone repair. So in order to explain the paradox from all the information given, we need to show that these people in tropical areas are still getting that calcium! That is the only way for them to not have problems with bone repair. Why? Because IF they have good bone repair THEN they must have calcium. IF they don't have calcium THEN they cannot have good bone repair. So where are they getting this calcium? That's we want to figure out. We want to say that these people in tropical areas are still getting that calcium, that would really be the only way to resolve the paradox.

(A) This actually wouldn't resolve the paradox at all. We know that the tropical people cannot absorb lactose anyway. Thus, this will have no effect and we are still left with this paradox.

(B) We don't care about milk consumption in nontropical areas. We are trying to explain why people in tropical areas still aren't having too many problems with bone repair.


Now you may be thinking, "the argument isn't saying that people in tropical areas have few problems, just that they have the same fewer amount of problems than people in nontropical areas." This sounds reasonable. However, we don't know anything about the people in nontropical areas so we cannot really say much about them that would resolve the paradox. Let's say (B) said something like "people in nontropical areas don't have milk." On the surface this seems like a great answer! Why? Because it seems to show that people in nontropical areas already have a lot of bone repair problems - after all, they don't have milk! However, be careful. There are other ways to get calcium and lactose other than milk. What can't we fight though? We cannot fight that you NEED calcium in order to have bone repair (Bone repair → Calcium).

All I am trying to say is that milk consumption is irrelevant, especially when discussing nontropical areas. We want to talk about calcium consumption in tropical areas...


(C) and this answer choice does it! If sunlight → vitamin D → aids in absorbing calcium, then we can more easily understand the apparent paradox. These tropical people are still getting their calcium and thus it could definitely make sense that they are having no more problems than those people in nontropical areas with things like milk and lactose. Calcium is the key idea in this question.

(D) We aren't really sure what impact dairy products have. Sure, you could say that dairy products have calcium. However, this seems to be outside knowledge and I wouldn't bank on it. Also, this word "slightly" is very troubling. "Slightly" doesn't mean much and, even if we assume that diary = calcium, I don't think it can explain the paradox.

(E) We aren't concerned with the relative ability to absorb lactose. We already know that inhabitants of tropical areas lose the ability to absorb lactose.

Hope that helps.