Q9 - People who need to reduce

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Weaken (looks like Flaw, but since all the answers are prefaced with "fails to consider the possibility", it's really going to act like Weaken)

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: N5 is useless to people trying to reduce fat/calorie intake.
Evidence: Subjects who ate N5 foods always felt hungrier than they would have with real fat foods, so they ate more, which meant they ended up consuming the same calories as before.

Answer Anticipation:
If we assign ourselves Opposing Counsel, we'd need to argue that "N5 is of use to people trying to reduce their fat/calorie intake". Yet, in this study, people eating N5 did not reduce calorie intake. But --- didn't they reduce fat intake? So it was still of SOME use to them. We could also try to argue that something about these subjects was unrepresentative of how people would use N5 "in the wild".

Correct Answer:
E

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) This sounds more like it helps the author -- "N5 is useless; you can't even make certain meals with it"

(B) This also helps --- "N5 is useless AND it has unpleasant side effects"

(C) Translate "not all" statements into "some aren't": "Some people who eat N5 foods do not pay attention to caloric intake". This drifts towards helping the author, since not paying attention to caloric intake sounds like a recipe for eating just as many calories as before.

(D) We don't know whether the people in this study knew / didn't know that N5 contains zero calories, so it's hard to apply this new information to what we were told. This answer would only work as an objection if we could say "THESE people were unrepresentative -- they knew N5 has zero calories so they ate too much food. For people who don't know N5 has zero calories, they might eat less and therefore consume less fat/calories.

(E) Yes! This argues the anti-conclusion nicely. N5 is of use, since people using N5 did get partial benefit: they ate less fat.

Takeaway/Pattern: My primary move on Weaken questions is simply to assign myself the Anti-Conclusion and pretend I'm Opposing Counsel, trying to argue that point of view. I picture the author saying her evidence and sitting down, and then think, "Now it's my turn to address the courtroom ... what am I going to say in response to what she just said?" Since I'm trying to convince the court that N5 actually IS useful for people who need to reduce fat/calorie intake, I would argue that these people were able to cut their fat intake, while having roughly the same amount of calories.

#officialexplanation

[lhermary]

I initially ruled out E here beceause the first sentence mentions 'people who need to reduce their intake of FAT AND TO CONSUME FEWER CALORIES.....'

which is why I choose D

Why is E a better answer then D?

[ohthatpatrick]

Good question.

The key is that the conclusion says that "N5 is of no use to these people".

Say that I'm looking to cure my dandruff AND make myself more attractive to the opposite sex. If I find a shampoo that only cures my dandruff, is it USELESS to me? No. It didn't give me everything I wanted, but if it gave me SOMETHING I wanted, then it's still useful.

So as you said, (E) is saying that N5 helped them reduce their intake of fat, but not their caloric intake. So N5 didn't solve all their problems, but it did solve one of them, which suggests that it is of SOME use to these people.

(D) makes a distinction between how much N5 food some users eat vs. how much N5 food other users eat. You were probably thinking that the people who know N5 is 0-calorie just eat more N5 food when they get hungry, thereby keeping their calories lower overall.

However, the premise doesn't allow this interpretation of (D) to be valid. It says that people who ate N5 (all of them, those who know it's 0-calorie and those who don't know) almost invariably ate more afterwards, nullifying the initial calorie savings they got using N5.

It might be helpful to clarify that eating foods prepared with N5 doesn't mean that the food itself is zero calorie. The N5 part of it is zero calorie, and since it's standing in where fat would otherwise be used, your meal is LOWER in calories if you use N5 than it would be had you used fat instead.

But a meal prepared with N5 still has calories in it, so eating multiple N5 meals is still racking up the calories.

When authors give us a really strong/extreme conclusion like "It's USELESS!", then say to yourself, skeptically, "Useless? Really? It has no beneficial qualities?"

If you're reading answers looking for that rebuttal, then (E) will seem a little more tempting. Your brain will think, "Ah! See. I knew it was good for something."

(D) sounds a bit more like it's fighting with the premise and trying to argue that you could eat extra N5 meals and still save on calories.

I hope that helps. Let me know if you have follow-up questions.

[AnuT330]

I suppose I understand why E is the correct answer, but I don't quite understand why C drifts toward helping the author. The author writes that N5 is useless in situations where people need to reduce fat intake AND to consume fewer calories because N5 inevitably increases calories. By saying this, doesn't the author overlook the people who don't care about calories, but do want to reduce their intake of fat? Wouldn't N5 help these people reduce their intake of fat, despite the increase in calories (the same way E does)?

I narrowed it down to C and E, but struggled to pick one, before choosing C. What am I missing?