Q7 - Even though MacArthur's diet book helped

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Principle Strengthen

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: MacArthur shouldn't have published his diet book.
Evidence: Though some people lost weight, many people's health was damaged by the book's recommendation to eat less fruit/veggies, and MacArthur is a physician who would have / should have known better on that issue.

Answer Anticipation:
We need to construct a rule whose trigger would apply to MacArthur's diet book, and whose outcome would deliver us the idea of "the book should NOT have been published". The negative things we heard about the book are that it damaged some people's health and that the author should have known that he was espousing dangerous advice. So we're looking for something like "If your book recommended something that damaged people's health, and you should have known it would, then the book shouldn't have been published."

Correct Answer:
E

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Can we trigger this rule? Did MacArthur "KNOW that publishing his book would seriously damage the health of many people"? Close. But we never talked about 'serious' damage.

(B) This rule is about dieting. We need a rule that concludes that MacArthur shouldn't have published his book.

(C) Illegal Negation. This is says "if the book will make people do healthy things, should publish it". This is attractive because we would LIKE something like "if the book will make people do unhealthy things, we should NOT publish it."

(D) Can we trigger this rule? Did we hear that "MacArthur did NOT know that this particular diet recommendation would result in losing weight"? We did not. In fact, MacArthur possibly DID know the diet would result in attaining the weight loss goal. The author's gripe is about MacArthur also knowing the harmful side-effect of attaining the weight loss goal by this particular means.

(E) YES. We can trigger this rule. MacArthur knew, or should have known, that eating few fruits/veggies would be hamrful, thus he should not have published a book recommending that course of action.

Takeaway/Pattern: Almost every single correct answer to a Principle Strengthen question connects Premise language to Conclusion language. Here we have "one should not publish a book" from the conclusion, and "X knew or should have known that ____ was unhealthful" from the Premise.

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