Summary
Poor writers often express boring ideas with fancy syntax and difficult vocabulary. Inattentive readers may be impressed, but they also may misunderstand the writing. Alert readers will easily see through the pretentiousness.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
Thus, a good principle for writers is: a writer’s style should match the complexity of the ideas expressed.
A
the simpler the style, the better the writing
This answer is unsupported. The author criticizes poor writing as using complex style to express mundane ideas. This doesn’t necessarily mean that there are not more complex ideas that necessitate a more complex style of writing.
B
inattentive readers are not worth writing for
This answer is unsupported. Nothing from the stimulus tells us which audiences are worth writing for.
C
only the most talented writers can successfully adopt a complex style
This answer is unsupported. The stimulus does not address talented writers or what they can achieve. The stimulus only addresses poor writing.
D
a writing style should not be more complex than the ideas expressed
This answer is strongly supported. The author criticizes poor writing as using complex style to express mundane ideas. Therefore, the author believes that the style of writing should correlate with the complexity of ideas being expressed.
E
alert readers are the only readers who are sensitive to writing style
This answer is unsupported. To say that alert readers are the “only” ones sensitive to style is too strong. We know that they are at least one group sensitive to style, but we cannot say they are the only ones.
Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
The government official concludes that there is no easily achievable way to eliminate chronic food shortages in his country. To support this conclusion, he raises, then rejects, two possible solutions. First, he says that direct food shipments from other countries will weaken the country’s long-term agricultural self sufficiency because these food shipments would force local producers out of business. And secondly, foreign investments in long-term development projects would result in inflation, making food unaffordable and perpetuating the food shortages.
Identify Argument Part
The claim in the question stem is a premise that rejects one of the potential solutions to the food shortages; in demonstrating that foreign investment will not easily solve the food shortage, this claim works to support the government official’s conclusion.
A
It supports the claim that the official’s country must someday be agriculturally self-sufficient.
The official does not claim that the country must become agriculturally self sufficient––this language is too strong; instead, he says that direct aid would undermine the possibility to of self-sufficiency. Also, the referenced text does not support the idea in this answer.
B
It supports the claim that there is no easy solution to the problem of chronic food shortages in the official’s country.
The claim in the question stem is a premise that supports the conclusion, so this answer is correct because it correctly identifies the conclusion.
C
It is supported by the claim that the official’s country must someday be agriculturally self-sufficient.
The claim in the question stem is a premise; it does not get support from any other part of the text.
D
It supports the claim that donations of food from other countries will not end the chronic food shortages in the official’s country.
The information about the results of food donation is separate from the information about the results of foreign investment; these are two separate premises that do not support each other. Instead, they both work to support the conclusion.
E
It is supported by the claim that food producers and suppliers in the official’s country may be forced out of business by donations of food from other countries.
Similar to answer C, this answer is wrong because the claim in the question text is a premise, so it does not receive support from any other part of the argument.
Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
The author thinks it’s likely that stress causes both acne and chocolate-eating, rather than chocolate consumption causing acne. To support this, they offer two pieces of evidence. First, stress hormones can cause acne. Second, chocolate enjoyers eat more chocolate when stressed.
Identify Conclusion
The conclusion is that “it is likely that common wisdom has mistaken an effect for a cause.” In other words, eating chocolate is probably an effect of stress (which also causes acne), rather than causing acne itself.
A
People are mistaken who insist that whenever they eat large amounts of chocolate they invariably suffer from an outbreak of acne.
The author doesn't say that people are mistaken about experiencing acne outbreaks during high-chocolate periods, and doesn't deny that chocolate consumption and acne can correlate. This simply isn’t a claim the author makes.
B
The more chocolate a person eats, the more likely that person is to experience the hormonal changes associated with stress.
The argument is not designed to prove that there is a correlation between stress and eating chocolate. Rather, this is used as a premise to support the conclusion that stress leads to both chocolate-eating and acne, rather than chocolate causing acne.
C
Eating large amounts of chocolate is more likely to cause stress than it is to cause outbreaks of acne.
This is not stated in the argument; the author isn’t saying that eating chocolate causes anything. Instead, the claim is that eating chocolate can be a result of stress.
D
It is less likely that eating large amounts of chocolate causes acne than that both the chocolate eating and the acne are caused by stress.
This accurately paraphrases the conclusion. The evidence given in the argument is meant to support the claim that stress causes both acne and chocolate-eating, as a rebuttal to the “common wisdom” of chocolate causing acne.
E
The more stress a person experiences, the more likely that person is to crave chocolate.
This isn’t quite what the argument says about stress and chocolate consumption, but even if it were, that relationship is used as support for the overall conclusion. It is not supported by anything else, so it is not the conclusion.
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author hypothesizes that the complexity of chocolate probably masks differences in taste between full-fat and low-fat chocolate ice cream. This is based on the fact that in a taste test, most people like low-fat chocolate ice cream as much as full-fat versions. But with vanilla ice cream, people tend to dislike the taste of low-fat versions compared ot full-fat versions. In addition, chocolate is known to be a very complex flavor.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that there’s no other explanation besides complexity of flavor for the differing reactions between low-fat chocolate and low-fat vanilla. The author also assumes that vanilla is not as complex a flavor as chocolate.
A
Most people prefer full-fat chocolate ice cream to full-fat vanilla ice cream.
Whether more people like chocolate vs. vanilla is not at issue. The issue is what explains why people like low-fat vs. full-fat chocolate equally, whereas they like full-fat vanilla more than low-fat vanilla.
B
The subjects of the previous tests were not informed of the difference in fat content.
Whether the subjects in previous tests knew about the fat differences has no clear impact on what explains why people like low-fat and full-fat chocolate ice cream equally.
C
The more distinct compounds required to produce a flavor, the better people like it.
This suggests a more complex flavor will be more liked than a less complex flavor. But we’re concerned with comparisons between high-fat and low-fat within the same flavor. Why do people like low-fat vanilla less than high-fat vanilla, but like both versions of chocolate equally?
D
Vanilla is known to be a significantly less complex flavor than chocolate.
If vanilla were just as complex as chocolate, the author’s hypothesis about complexity masking taste wouldn’t make sense, because people dislike low-fat vanilla compared to high-fat. (D) defends the argument by confirming that vanilla is less complex than chocolate.
E
Most people are aware of the chemical complexities of different flavors.
People’s awareness of complexities of flavors has no clear impact. They may be aware, but we have no reason to think this relates to complexity of flavor helping to mask taste differences between high-fat and low-fat ice creams.