Logical reasoning PrepTest 110 · Section 3 · Question 1

Incorrect. The stimulus discusses two approaches that are more/less likely to result in change, but that's different than the advice being ignored. Also, there's no indication of confusion in the stimulus—more options could still be pretty straightforward.

Incorrect. The stimulus is about people making changes, not calculating the best choice. It's also about success in making those changes, not dislike of them—it's possible that the lifestyle changes being suggested by the doctors are all quite unpleasant!

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Illustration (Principle)

Stimulus Summary:
Goal — Get a patient to follow lifestyle modification advice
Approach — Give the patient fewer options instead of many options

Answer Anticipation:
This question asks us to find an answer stating a principle that the stimulus illustrates. That means the stimulus is going to describe a situation, and we have to abstract from that situation to a principle underlying it.

The situation compares two approaches to reach a given goal. That goal is to get a patient to make certain lifestyle modifications. The approach "more likely" to work is to give them fewer rather than more options.

So moving this away from a discussion of doctors patients and lifestyle advice the principle underlying this situation is:
When trying to get someone to make a change giving them fewer options is more likely to get them to make those changes.

Answer Explanation:
This is a fancy way of saying the more options the less likely to change behavior; or the fewer the options the more likely to change behavior. That lines up with the stimulus so this is the correct answer.

Key Takeaway:
Principle questions are generally about getting the details to match between the stimulus and the answers and Illustration questions are the same. As you may imagine Illustration (Principle) questions should involve scrutinizing the answers to make sure the details are aligned!

Incorrect. This answer doesn't distinguish between having more and fewer choices—either situation could lead to someone vividly imagining the consequences of not following advice (or not being able to do so).

Incorrect. First accuracy of the diagnosis is out of scope of the argument—for all we know the advice being given by the doctor is based on a misdiagnosis. Additionally clarity isn't inherently related to the number of options—there could be one very unclear option or multiple very clear ones.