Q11 - Modest amounts of exercise

[ohthatpatrick]

What does the Question Stem tell us?
Inference (most strongly supported)

Break down the Stimulus:
Read to combine ideas using Conditional, Causal, Quantitative, or Comparison/Contrast language.
The 1st sentence has causal: "can produce". 2nd sentence is also causal/conditional "need only do ___ to obtain ___". 3rd sentence has a contrast: "more vigorous is more effective".

Any prephrase?
Nothing obvious here about how to combine ideas together. The gist is simply that exercising, even moderately, on most days of the week is enough to give you cardiovascular benefits. So don't quit your New Year's Resolution! It doesn't have to be strenuous to help you out. Just make a habit out of it!

Correct answer:
A

Answer choice analysis:
A) Super safely worded. "Doing this CAN produce that". Seems supportable. We know that exercising even moderately on most days of the week can get you cardiovascular benefits. And we know that more vigorous (strenuous) exercise is even more effective than that. If modest amounts (most days of the week) can produce dramatic improvements, and vigorous exercise is more effective, then we have good support for (A).

B) More dangerous wording: "doing this GENERALLY produces that". Also, we were told that half an hour on at least 4 days a week would do it. This is talking about doing twice as long half as frequently. Yes, that may add up to the same total of hours, but maybe there's something crucial about exercising more than two days a week.

C) Dangerous wording: "____ is AT LEAST AS GREAT as ____". This also seems to go against the gist that strenuous is "MORE effective".

D) Super dangerous wording: "There is NO WAY". That's crazy. Nothing we read was that extreme.

E) Super dangerous: "To obtain ___ one MUST do ____". Nothing we read suggested that strenuous exercise was necessary. In fact, it said the opposite.

Takeaway/Pattern: Knowing that strong and comparative language is inherently sketchy on Inference answer choices, we can quickly filter (D) and (E) out of initial consideration. (B) is not AS strongly worded, but it's still stronger than (A) or (C). Once we try to support (A) vs. (C), we can see how (A) is supportable by combining what we know about moderate exercise with the claim that vigorous exercise is more effective.

#officialexplanation

[ganbayou]

I was not sure between A and B...
I chose B in the end thinking it 's the combination of the 1st sentence and the second sentence.
Why is B wrong??

[delaney.gold.diamond]

The stimulus says that "one should exercise most days a week", but that the exercise doesn't have to be strenuous. B is incorrect on its face simply because it ignores the stimulus's emphasis on the "most days of the week", instead stating that 2-3 days a week insufficient. B is too complicated because it requires us to total up the number of hours spent walking, instead of just the simple fact that exercise produces benefits. That's why, I think A is the better choice. Although, when I took the test I chose B, too!