Logical reasoning PrepTest 113 · Section 3 · Question 11
Question prompt
Several thousand years ago,
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
Paradox Questions
Stimulus Summary
You can grow more corn faster than other grains. When people discovered this, they switched to a primarily corn-based diet. Corn is less nutritious than other grains, leading to health problems - but people kept up their corn-based diets.
Answer Anticipation
As with all Paradox questions, we should start by clearly defining the paradox. Here, there’s no question as to why people would switch to corn in the first place - more can be grown faster than other grains.
However, there is a question as to why they would keep growing it after discovering that it led to nutrition-related health problems. That’s what we need to explain - why they wouldn’t switch back once they started getting sick. The answer will likely establish that health problems were worse (or about the same) with the old grains (e.g., starvation was rampant with them, and starvation was a bigger problem than these health issues), or the nutrition problem with corn could be solved somehow (maybe eating more fish covers the nutritional shortfall).
Answer choices
-
AThe variety of corn Remaining source text redacted.
Why choice A is not credited
The stimulus already establishes that corn could grow more food per unit of land than other grains, so it being even more productive than ancient corn doesn’t really add anything that could explain the paradox. -
BModern varieties of corn Remaining source text redacted.
Why choice B is not credited
The paradox is about the persistent use of corn by people several thousand years ago, so what’s true of modern varieties of corn is out of scope. This answer also doesn’t do anything but reaffirm that the older varieties of corn were nutritionally deficient! -
CThe people did not Remaining source text redacted.
Why choice C is not credited
This answer makes the paradox worse by removing the possibility of one solution to the problem. If the people didn’t have a specific source of food that could make up for the nutritional deficit, then it makes it harder to understand why they kept eating corn and suffering from those health issues. -
DSome grain corps that Remaining source text redacted.
Why choice D is not credited
This answer would make the other grains easier to grow compared to corn in one way, which (if anything) would provide a reason to switch back to them once the health problems started appearing. -
EThe people discovered some Remaining source text redacted.
Why choice E matches the stem
This answer establishes that the people found a solution to the health problems. If they could eat corn plus something else that was readily available to get all the nutrients they needed, then it would make sense to continue growing the more productive and faster-growing corn since the downside has been mitigated.
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