Q2 - Bevex, an artificial sweetener

[WaltGrace1983]

This one is legendary, my first LR stimulus ever! I cannot believe no one has said anything about it yet so as I am reviewing some old NA questions, I'll tackle this one.

To ingest an amount of Bevex equal to an amount carcinogenic for mice, one would have to drink 25+ cans of Bevex-sweetened soft drink per day
→
Bevex is safe for people

This could have been a much harder question because there is one big gap and lots of tiny gaps:

Gap #1: Who is to say that what is carcinogenic for mice is related to what is carcinogenic for people?

Gap #2: Isn't it possible that people could drink 25 cans? Maybe everyone drinks 26 cans a day!

Gap #3: This wouldn't probably ever be tested on a question like this, but there is also a gap between "very large quantities" described in the background info and the amount of "25 cans." Maybe 25 cans isn't a "very large quantity?"

(A) We don't care about what happens when cancer already develops. We are focused on whether or not cancer could develop in people from Bevex. This is a scope issue.

(B) This is just a premise booster. This is because this is information that we already know yet does't close any kind of gap between the premise and the conclusion. We know that Bevex is carcinogenic for mice from the argument. I will note though that I am equating Bevex to "food." If we don't do this then this would simply be out of scope too.

(D) This one is talking about controlling weight, which has no relevance to the argument at all! We aren't talking about something that is overall healthy or helps to control weight, we are only talking about the idea of being carcinogenic! This is also out of scope.

(E) This is a great trick answer! This gets to one of the gaps we pointed out (Gap #1) yet it is actually the opposite of what we are looking for! All this is telling us is that there are some studies done on mice that don't answer anything about people. That's fine! We don't need all studies to be relevant. What we are actually looking for is, "some of the studies done on Bevex were relevant to the question of whether or not Bevex is carcinogenic for people." That would be a perfect answer! Fortunately for us though, we can write it off as being the opposite.

(C) is the correct answer! This attacks the second gap beautiful and if we assume the negation of (C) we cannot get to the conclusion that Bevex is healthy.

[lsatgotrocked]

Let's keep it simple.

Question type: Sufficient Assumption.

If Bevex consumed in large quantities ---> unsafe.

Human consumes 25 cans per day (a large quantity) ----> unsafe.

The conclusion is that it is safe. In order for this to be true it must be true that humans won;t consume 25 cans peer day (i.e. the contrapositive). Correct answer C.

The incorrect answers:

A.) We don't care about this - irrelevant. Our answer has to get at how many people drink in a day.
B.) Irrelevant.
C.) Yes.
D.) Important health benefits? Irrelevant.
E.) Irrelevant.

[jiangziou]

This is Necessary Assumption

Let's keep it simple.

Question type: Sufficient Assumption.

If Bevex consumed in large quantities ---> unsafe.

Human consumes 25 cans per day (a large quantity) ----> unsafe.

The conclusion is that it is safe. In order for this to be true it must be true that humans won;t consume 25 cans peer day (i.e. the contrapositive). Correct answer C.

The incorrect answers:

A.) We don't care about this - irrelevant. Our answer has to get at how many people drink in a day.
B.) Irrelevant.
C.) Yes.
D.) Important health benefits? Irrelevant.
E.) Irrelevant.