Q1 - In a recent study of more than 400

by **ohthatpatrick** Fri Dec 31, 1999 8:00 pm

Question Type:
Strengthen

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: You might not need a SUPER low fat diet to protect the heart.
Evidence: In a study, people eating a fair amount of Mediterranean fat protected their heart better than people eating a Western diet with limited fat intake.

Answer Anticipation:
It's LSAT's favorite show: Correlation vs. Causality! "People on the somewhat fatty Medit diet were correlated with better heart health". Thus, the author thinks that the somewhat fatty Medit diet caused the better heart health (or, at least, didn't impede it). Normally we would consider "Ruling out OTHER WAYS to explain what happened in the experiment" or "increasing the PLAUSIBILITY of the AUTHOR'S WAY". However, since this is a #1 and the conclusion is incredibly weak and easy to support, we can probably just look for something that makes us feel better about trusting this study and endorsing the author's takeaway.

Correct Answer:
B

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Goes the wrong direction. We want ideas that sound more like "you ARE eating fat and are still not having heart problems"

(B) Sure! This sounds like more support that it's possible to eat fat without getting heart problems. The oil in the Mediterranean fats actually "protects the heart against" bad stuff.

(C) Out of scope. We don't care whether they enjoyed it or continued it.

(D) Out of scope. We don't care about cardiologists' advice to exercise. We care about the dietary stuff.

(E) Out of scope. We aren't worried about whether drugs could enhance the diet. We want to know about whether the diet itself protected the heart, while allowing modest levels of fat.

Takeaway/Pattern: In the language of Correlation vs. Causality, we might say this answer Strengthens by adding to the plausibility of the Author's Interpretation. (even more nerdy, this type of answer does so by describing in more detail "the causal mechanism"). For example, if I said "Nora is crying. Thus, she must be cutting onions", I could strengthen that argument by saying "fumes released from sliced onions can irritate tear ducts on contact".

#officialexplanation