The Story
Public health expert: Increasing the urgency of a public health message may be counterproductive.
The public health expert is giving an opinion in this sentence.
I wonder what ‘urgency of a public health message’ means. I’m thinking urgent messages would be something like: ‘act now!’, ‘you’ve got to stop smoking today!!!’.
‘Counterproductive’ means that the act would have the opposite of the desired effect: So, probably instead of inspiring people to act healthily, these messages would lead people to act unhealthily.
Why would increasing the urgency of such messages be counterproductive? Perhaps we’ll find out.
In addition to irritating the majority who already behave responsibly, it may undermine all government pronouncements on health by convincing people that such messages are overly cautious.
‘In addition to’: So this is the first idea, and there are more to come.
The second half of the sentence helps me understand who/ what is irritating those who already act responsibly.
‘it’: Increasing the urgency of a public health message
This sentence is giving us reasons for why increasing the urgency might be counterproductive.
1. It would irritate all the people who already act responsibly. And those people form a majority.
(How would this be counterproductive? Maybe some people would stop behaving responsibly after getting irritated.)
2. It may undermine all government health announcements.
Why?
Because people would think that higher urgency health messages are overly cautious. (And would therefore pay less heed to the messages.)
This sentence gives us two reasons to support the point made in the first sentence.
And there is no reason to believe that those who ignore measured voices will listen to shouting.
(Why are they talking about shouting and measured voices suddenly?)
When I relate this statement to what I’ve read so far, I gather that the author is basically trying to say that there is no reason to believe that those who ignore the current public health messages will listen to more urgent ones. This statement indicates that increasing the urgency will anyway not be beneficial.
Author’s logic:Let's break down the expert's argument into its core components. The entire passage is structured to support the very first sentence.
• Main conclusion: "Increasing the urgency of a public health message may be counterproductive." This is the central claim the expert is making.
• Supporting premises: The expert provides three distinct reasons to back up this conclusion:
1. It would irritate the majority of people who already behave responsibly.
2. It may undermine all government health pronouncements by convincing people that such messages are overly cautious.
3. There's no reason to believe it would even work on the intended audience, since those who ignore "measured voices" (current messages) are unlikely to listen to "shouting" (more urgent ones).
Essentially, the logic is: since increasing the urgency has clear downsides (irritating people, undermining trust) and no obvious upside (it probably won't work anyway), the action may be counterproductive.
Question Stem
The two sections in boldface play which of the following roles in the public health expert's argument?BF1 is the main point of the argument.
BF2 is one of the bases.
Answer choice analysis
(A) The first is a conclusion for which support is provided. but is not the argument's main conclusion; the second is an unsupported premise supporting the arguments main conclusion.
Incorrect.
1. Yes, the first boldface is a conclusion.
Yes, there is support provided for it.
No, it is the main conclusion of the argument.
The first half is wrong.
2. Yes, the second boldface is an unsupported premise.
Yes, it supports the argument’s main conclusion.
The second half is correct.
(B) The first is a premise supporting the only explicit conclusion; so is the second.Incorrect.
1. No, the first boldface itself is the only explicit conclusion in the argument.
The first half is wrong.
2.Yes, the second boldface does support the only explicit conclusion.
The second half is correct.
(C) The first is the argument's main conclusion; the second supports that conclusion and is itself a conclusion for which support is provided.Incorrect. 1. Yup, BF1 is the argument’s main conclusion.
The first half is correct.
2. Yes, BF2 supports that conclusion.
No, BF2 is not itself a conclusion for which support is provided.
The second half is wrong.
Many test-takers interpret this half incorrectly. To understand why this half is incorrect, let’s evaluate three aspects:
1. Does the last sentence support BF2?
2. Does the first half of the second sentence support BF2?
3. Is there support for BF2 within BF2?
1. Does the last sentence support BF2?No.
The last sentence gives us a reason for believing why it might not be beneficial to increase the urgency - people who don’t listen to current messages will probably not pay heed to the more urgent ones either. So,
there will not be any positive outcome of increasing the urgency.
BF2 talks about a
particular negative outcome: all government pronouncements on health will be undermined by convincing people that such messages are overly cautious.
The notion that there wouldn’t be a positive outcome doesn’t support the idea that there will be a particular negative outcome.
Moreover, the last sentence starts with the word ‘and’. The structure of the last two sentences is:
In addition to X, Y. And Z.
In such a structure, I don’t see how Z would support Y.
2. Does the first half of the second sentence support BF2?In addition to X, Y. X and Y are two independent ideas both mentioned to support the first sentence. X itself doesn’t support Y.
Plus, the idea that people will get irritated by the more urgent messages has no impact on the idea that all government health pronouncements may get undermined.
3. Is there support for BF2 within BF2?Well, one part of BF2 supports the other - govementment health pronouncements may be undermined
because people will be convinced that such more urgent messages are overly cautious.
But, the parts
combined form BF2. And when the answer choice states: ‘for which support is provided’, the ‘which’ refers to the entire BF2.
We are not checking whether a part of BF2 is supported by another part of BF2. We need to check whether BF2 itself is supported by something. And no, nothing outside of BF2 supports it.
(D) The first is a premise supporting the argument's only conclusion; the second is that conclusion.Incorrect.
1. No, BF1 itself is the argument’s only conclusion.
The first half is wrong.
2. No, BF2 supports the argument’s only conclusion.
The second half is wrong.
(E) The first is the argument‘s only explicit conclusion; the second is a premise supporting that conclusion.
Correct.
1. Yes, BF1 is the argument’s only explicit conclusion.
2. Yes, the second is indeed a premise supporting that conclusion.
This answer choice fits with my analysis of the passage above. Both halves are correct. This is the correct answer.
Additional Notes
1. The key to getting most boldface questions correct is understanding the passage well. If the passage is an argument, understand what the main point is, what supports it, What role does each idea play.
2. 24% people selected ‘C’ as their answer. For BF2 to be a conclusion, there would need to be support for it.
A. The 3rd statement or the first half of the 2nd statement does not support BF2.
A way to check is: e.g. Does <3rd statement> therefore <BF2> make sense?
‘There is no reason to believe that people who don’t listen to the current messages will listen to more urgent ones’
therefore
‘increasing the urgency of a public health message may undermine all government health pronouncements by convincing people that such messages are overly cautious’.
That doesn’t make sense. It is not like health pronouncements will get undermined because people might be stubborn.
This test can help us understand that the last statement or even the first half of the second sentence does not support BF2.
B. Some people consider that ‘by convincing people that such messages are overly cautious‘ supports ‘It may undermine all government pronouncements on health‘. While I agree with that view, we need to look if there is support offered for the entire boldfaced portion outside the boldfaced portion. There isn’t.- C. The last two sentences have the following structure:In addition to X, Y. And Z. The structure itself indicates that none of X, Y and Z supports any of the others.
Apr 16
Apr 26
Apr 27
Apr 28
13 Aug 2020, 15:08
), with the "by" portion just telling us HOW something happens, not why they think it's true. 
