Logical reasoning PrepTest 107 · Section 1 · Question 6

Question prompt

These days, drug companies Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: E

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Argument or Facts

Facts

Valid or Flawed

NA

Question Type

Must Be True Questions

Stimulus Summary

Relationship - More cholesterol = Higher risk of heart attack
Strong comparison - Heart disease kills more people than anything else
Causal factors for blood cholesterol - Smoking, drinking, exercise

Answer Anticipation

One of the key skills in tackling Must be True questions is recognizing what information from a stimulus will be relevant in finding an answer. Here, there are a lot of relevant pieces of information! Let’s talk about why each one is relevant.
The opening line isn’t relevant. Why? Because it’s too weak to support an inference - people focusing on a certain area is more background than premise.
From there, though, we go into some relevant info. The second sentence establishes a proportional relationship between cholesterol and heart attacks, and proportional relationships can lead to inferences. Next, we get a strong comparison - heart disease kills more people than any other cause. This is important because we can pick an answer that brings up an unmentioned cause of death, since we know that it kills fewer people than heart disease based on this comparison. Finally, we end with causal factors in cholesterol - smoking, drinking, and exercise.
Noting these will likely be enough to get us to the correct answer, but we should also see if the statements overlap in a way that can let us have a more specific inference. And looking, our first and last statements can build off of one another - changing up your smoking/drinking/exercise can affect your blood cholesterol, which will affect your risk of heart attack.

Answer choices

  1. A
    If a person has Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    This answer is a great trap answer. It feels as if it is an inference from the second sentence - the directly proportional relationship. However, that relationship is a relative one. The more cholesterol, the higher the risk. While this does let us infer that the less cholesterol, the lower the risk, that doesn’t let us infer that low cholesterol leads to low risk. Maybe the baseline risk for everyone is actually moderate, and lowering your cholesterol just brings it down a bit, but not into the low range.
  2. B
    Smoking in moderation can Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    The final statement doesn’t allow us to draw an inference on how different levels of smoking affect cholesterol, since it doesn’t establish a proportional relationship as the second statement does. So maybe any smoking presents an equivalent risk of heart disease, or maybe more smoking results in more risk.
  3. C
    A high–cholesterol diet is Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Another tempting trap answer! However, the argument never relates diet to blood cholesterol levels. In fact, it mentions only smoking, drinking, and exercise as affecting blood cholesterol - that list doesn’t mention diet.
  4. D
    The only way that Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    You should have jumped out of this answer as soon as you read “The only way” - there’s no language in the stimulus that would support such a strong answer.
  5. E
    The risk of fatal Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E matches the stem
    Changing up your smoking, drinking, and exercise would constitute changes in lifestyle. Those changes would affect your blood cholesterol, which would affect your risk of heart disease. This answer is established by the second and last statement, so it’s the correct answer.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 11%
  2. B 1%
  3. C 5%
  4. D 2%
  5. E Credited 81%

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