Consumer Advocate: The new soft drink, Mango Paradise

[sheetal]

Consumer Advocate: The new soft drink, Mango Paradise, contains at least 2.5% of Ephedra, a chemical supplement that stimulates the activity of the nervous system but may also result in serious cardiac problems. Therefore, this drink is harmful to consumer health and should be banned from distribution in our state.

Which of the following is an assumption made by the consumer advocate?
(A) The new soft drink will soon be introduced into mass production.
(B) Consumers are unlikely to enjoy the taste of Mango Paradise because of the high amount of Ephedra contained in the drink.
(C) Any drink that contains at least 2.5% of Ephedra is harmful to consumer health.
(D) The Consumer Advocate is not affiliated with the producer of Mango Paradise.
(E) Most consumers who drink Mango Paradise will eventually experience serious cardiac problems.

Why is E incorrect? what makes C a better answer than E?

Thanks in advance.

[Dhruv]

The sentence doesnt talk about the number of ppl who might suffer from cardiac arrest

[StaceyKoprince]

Yep, as far as E is concerned, nothing in the argument gives us any idea of the number or proportion of people who might be affected.

The first sentence tells us one thing about the drink: it "contains at least 2.5% of Ephedra." The author then concludes "therefore" this drink is harmful. The author must be assuming that the only given piece of info is the problem - the threshold ("at least 2.5%") is the problem.

[chughbrajesh]

In C, isn't any too extreme? Maybe somewhere in something that chemical can be used in to make a drink that may be beneficial to somebody?

[RonPurewal]

In C, isn't any too extreme? Maybe somewhere in something that chemical can be used in to make a drink that may be beneficial to somebody?

Nope.

Consider:

Ron has huge feet. Therefore, Ron must be dumb.
In this argument, you're assuming that everyone with huge feet is dumb. If there's even one exception, then the argument doesn't work anymore, since Ron might be that exception.

[ShivaniS604]

I am also confused between options C and E. The argument says that Ephedra may result in cardiac problems and then says THEREFORE it is harmful to consumer health. Doesn't it mean that the argument assumes that cardiac problem is harmful for consumer health (which of course is!) and Ephedra may cause cardiac problems? Because until the author assumes that it will cause cardiac problems, he cannot say that it is harmful to consumer health.
Also, if we negate option E, then it means that 'No one who drinks mango paradise would experience cardiac problems'. This destroys the argument that the drink is harmful for consumer health. Even C seems to destroy the argument.
How to pick between these 2 choices?

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

The argument says that Ephedra may result in cardiac problems and then says THEREFORE it is harmful to consumer health. Doesn't it mean that the argument assumes that cardiac problem is harmful for consumer health (which of course is!) and Ephedra may cause cardiac problems?

The argument states that Ephedra may cause cardiac problems. We need to just accept this as a fact, as a starting point of the argument. From that, the argument claims that "this drink is harmful to consumer health". Sure, as you say, the argument assumes that something that causes cardiac problems is bad for one's health. However, that's a pretty safe and uncontroversial assumption. The more interesting gap in the argument is: "Would 2.5% of Ephedra actually cause any problems?". Perhaps 2.5% is a very weak concentration that would be safe to consume.

Also, if we negate option E, then it means that 'No one who drinks mango paradise would experience cardiac problems'. This destroys the argument that the drink is harmful for consumer health.

Be careful here. The opposite of 'most' is not 'none', it's actually 'not most', meaning 'less than half'. This leaves open the possibility that some people would experience cardiac problems and the argument isn't destroyed. Since answer E is hard to negate, I'd encourage you to notice that it has a more obvious problem: there's no connection with Mango Paradise. Even if we follow answer E and consumers experience cardiac problems, we don't know that they are due to Mango Paradise and Ephedra; it could be the case that the consumers are simply old or unhealthy for some other reason.