Q5 - Studies reveal that most people

[monster_omiga]

Hi, can anybody explain why (B) is wrong?
I think it can be inferred from (B) that people choose flavor over nutrition, so it helps strengthen the conclusion that health experts should emphasize flavor.

Thanks!

[demetri.blaisdell]

Thanks for your question, monster_omiga. (B) is indeed a tempting answer choice. Let me run through the argument core and all the answer choices and try to show you what's wrong with it. The argument core is:

Flavor is more important than nutrition is choosing foods -----> Experts should emphasize how flavorful the nutritious foods are to get more people to eat them

I didn't come up with a real clear gap on this one so let's move to the answer choices.

(A) weakens the argument. If people currently believe that nutritious foods are more flavorful, then a new campaign to show this won't help get more people to eat them.

(B) is out of scope. The argument talks about advertising how flavorful the nutritious foods truly are. (B) tells us about a choice between foods that are flavorful but not nutritious (Dorito chips) and the nutritious food that isn't flavorful (bean sprouts or something). But the argument is about nutritious foods that are flavorful already! The health experts aren't trying to get people to eat the nutritious foods that aren't flavorful. At least they aren't doing that through this campaign.

(C) weakens. If they've been moderately successful by emphasizing the nutrition value of the foods, why should they switch tactics to advertising the flavor?

(D) seems to weaken the argument. It seems to suggest that people either are pretending that the least nutritious foods are the most flavorful (to justify eating them, perhaps) or actually do prefer the Dorito chips to the brussels sprouts. Either way, this makes it even harder to convince people to eat the healthy flavorful food.

(E) is the strengthener. The study tested exactly what the argument core talks about: are people more willing to try foods when they're told they are flavorful or nutritious? Turns out telling the people that the food is flavorful worked better. Great, let's roll out the public service announcements!

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any more questions on this.

Demetri

[curicuri22]

In the argument, I can't fine any clue saying that flavorful foods are already nutritious foods.

I think B is wrong because although it strenghtens the argument indirectly, it does not directly support the argument. We cannot be sure that people will choose flavorful foods over nutritious food, if soley depending on the (B).

[demetri.blaisdell]

Thanks for posting. The stimulus does say that nutritious foods are flavorful. It says "if they emphasized how flavorful those foods truly are...". They are truly flavorful. The problem is how the health experts should advertise them.

Above I said (B) is out of scope. As I look at it now, I realize it is a premise booster. The stimulus already said people choose foods based on flavor rather than nutrition. (B) essentially repeats that. When choosing between flavorful (and not nutritious) and nutritious (but not flavorful), few people choose nutritious. That is simply restating the first sentence of the stimulus.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.

Demetri

[mercedesbenz923]

This is to Demetri,

Wouldn't C strengthen in the sense that the stimulus says if u emphasize flavour you will be more successful! C says using current method they have been moderately successful so switching tactics would still be a good idea because they could improve even more!

[hyl387]

I am having trouble understanding why D does not strengthen the argument. If those who chooses food on the basis of flavor already regard wholesome food as the most flavorful, emphasizing the flavor of the food would not have any effect on them. For the rest of us who do not choose food on the basis of flavor, emphasizing the flavor would not have any effect on us anyway.
Is this a legitimate concern?

[e. chung]

hyl387, I chose D as well.

I just realized that D supports the premise, not the conclusion. It's a PREMISE BOOSTER, as they say in the Manhattan Prep book.

The argument:

P: people choose foods based on flavor; nutrition's secondary
C: health experts should tell people how flavorful healthy foods are; they'd get more success

D - bad foods are the most flavorful, so people choose them

E - people told nutritious food was flavorful were more likely to enjoy it than people who were told it was nutritious

This links the idea of flavor & the success of health experts.

I hope that helps.

[asafezrati]

hyl387, I chose D as well.

I just realized that D supports the premise, not the conclusion. It's a PREMISE BOOSTER, as they say in the Manhattan Prep book.

The argument:

P: people choose foods based on flavor; nutrition's secondary
C: health experts should tell people how flavorful healthy foods are; they'd get more success

D - bad foods are the most flavorful, so people choose them

E - people told nutritious food was flavorful were more likely to enjoy it than people who were told it was nutritious

This links the idea of flavor & the success of health experts.

I hope that helps.

Sorry, but this "premise booster" here doesn't make sense to me.

I think that his is the right direction:

We need to strengthen the conclusion that people can be encouraged to eat wholesome foods by bla bla bla...

I understood from this that wholesome foods are:
1. Flavorful (or can be emphasized as such, thus making people to think it is flavorful).
2. Nutritious.

The added info in answer choice D is "people rated as most flavorful those foods that were least nutritious".

Firstly, this speaks of a certain group of items that is in the extremes of two spectrums: most flavorful + least nutritious. In the people's mind: Most flavorful <-> Least Nutritious.
Wholesome foods are not least nutritious, and we are not told that they are the most flavorful. This sentence doesn't apply to wholesome foods and thus doesn't affect the argument.

Your opinions?

[ratphilip]

Can someone walk me through A.

As I understand it, the Argument is that: People eat food they deem are flavorful, not nutritious. Therefore if Health Experts want people to eat wholesome foods, they should advertise it as Flavorful.

In my prephrasing, I thought that would be wonderful if experts emphasize how flavorful the food is in encouraging people to try wholesome food, but it would not affect longterm eating habits unless the food actually was Flavorful.

The question involves "to eat"; the infinitive tense. NOT "to try". If we want people to eat the flavorful food, the food would ACTUALLY have to be flavorful. Nothing in the stimulus guarantees to me that the food is actually flavorful. Even the word "truly" could mean the food is "truly terrible".

A) does tell me that the food actually is flavorful. So now with that combined with the stimulus, I am confident that if both More people are told the wholesome food is flavorful, and the wholesome food is ACTUALLY flavorful then more people will eat wholesome food.

I understand why E is a good answer. I just feel confident A is an even better one...

Please help me out.
Thanks!

[ohthatpatrick]

Hey-o.

A few things, "truly" was specifically referring to "flavorful", so I'm not sure why you think the "truly" could have been referring to "truly terrible".

You are correct in wanting an answer that says the foods are truly flavorful (in a way that goes beyond the author's opinion), but the author has already provided us with her opinion that wholesome foods truly are flavorful.

(A) in no way gives us the "fact" that wholesome foods truly are flavorful, for it's just about what people currently "believe".

(A) could almost be considered a weaken idea, since the conclusion is saying "you'll get better results changing people's habits if you emphasize the flavorful nature of these foods". In order to change people's habits, we would need to change their current perspective.

If most people already recognize wholesome foods as the MORE flavorful category of food, then emphasizing the flavorful nature of wholesome foods is just telling them what they already know.

How would health experts be changing people's habits by emphasizing something those people already know?

We're more likely to change our mind about something when presented with NEW information.

Hope this helps.

[LolaC289]

I actually got to (E) pretty quickly, here is my way, I hope some trainers can help check if mine is right : )

The premise is saying between FOODS, flavor is more important than nutrition for people.

The conclusion goes on to claim that WITHIN A FOOD, flavor is more important than nutrition for people.

I think there is a gap. Simply because a tendency exists in different kinds of a thing, doesn't mean that tendency also exists within a specific kind of that thing. Maybe between low-fat yogurt and potato chips, people prefer chips because it tastes better; but when choosing potato chips, people actually prefer the ones that are lower in calories. (which tells us the complexity of humanity).

Thus, we are simply looking for an answer that claims that within A FOOD, flavor is more important than nutrition, since the original premise doesn't actually do much help. The only one talks about only one kind of food is (E) and thus the correct choice.

[GolddiggerF208]

(B), (D) and (E) are tempting. Here are my thoughts:

(B) only mentions that few people prefer nutrition to flavor. But do we exactly know how many people prefer flavor to nutrition? We have no idea. The conclusion is experts are supposed to recommend flavor than nutrition. (B) doesn't make more difference.

(D) is more difficult for me. But compared with (E), (D) is less strengthening. Both (D) and (E) indicate generally that people prefer flavor to nutrition. The point is (E) explicitly mentions people can be affected by others' words, which exactly matches the stimulus.