Logical reasoning PrepTest 115 · Section 4 · Question 5

Incorrect. This answer is a tempting trap! However, the stimulus notes that inhabitants of tropical areas lose the ability to absorb lactose, so the tablets wouldn't do much.

Incorrect. Even if it's fallen in both areas, the stimulus still suggests milk consumption is higher in non-tropical areas, so more bone repair issues would still be expected in those locations.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Paradox

Stimulus Summary:
Lactose helps calcium repair bones. Tropical inhabitants don't get a lot of lactose and can't absorb it. But they don't have problems with bone repair.

Answer Anticipation:
As with all Paradox questions, we should start by clearly defining the paradox.

Here, it's established that lactose helps with bone repair. That might lead you to expect that people who don't get a lot of lactose would have issues with bone repair. However, people who live in the tropics don't get a lot of lactose, but they don't have any issues with their bones getting repaired.

Since they lack one thing that aids in bone repair but don't have any associated problems, it must be the case that they get more of something else that helps with bone repair. Let's find an answer that brings up another potential means of accomplishing the same effect.

Answer Explanation:
If sunlight is more prevalent in tropical areas and it can replace the effect of lactose, then it makes sense that inhabitants of those areas wouldn't have more bone repair issues than places with less sunlight but more milk/lactose.

Key Takeaway:
When two outcomes are similar despite a relevant difference, it's likely that the correct answer in a Paradox question will bring up another relevant difference that cuts in the opposite direction as the initial one. Here, two populations had similar levels of bone repair issues despite one having more lactose. The correct answer highlighted another relevant difference—sunlight/vitamin D levels—that cut in the other direction saying that the lower-lactose population was exposed to more sunlight, cutting in the other direction as far as bone repair is concerned.

Incorrect. It rising slightly doesn't mean that they're getting as much lactose as those in non-tropical areas, and they still presumably have issues with absorbing the lactose since the stimulus notes they lost the ability to do so!

Incorrect. Why they lose the ability to absorb lactose doesn't affect that they do, even if it's to different extents.