The more organic food children have, the more developed their memory

Question

The more organic food children have, the more developed their memory is. More than a fifth of children in Newbury County have been found to have their 30 percent daily food intake to be organic, while the figure is a dismal 9 percent in Hammingsport County. Also, 40 percent of children in Newbury County public schools are competitive in state-level spelling bee competitions, while only 15 percent of children in Hammingsport County public schools can reach that level. Therefore, for children to do well in terms of information retention, organic food is a must.

Which one of the following information, if true, will most strengthen the argument?

A. In Chess, children in Hammingsport County public schools are as good as children in Newbury County public schools.

B. Hammingsport County children are less interested in state-level competitions than are children from Newbury County.

C. Children who are competitive in spelling bee competitions normally prefer organic food.

D. Switching to organic food can lead to immediate improvement in information retention capacity.

E. There is no special spelling bee coaching available to children in Newbury County public schools.

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divyadna · Accepted Answer

Conclusion: For children to do well in terms of information retention, organic food is a must.

Background:The more organic food children have, the more developed their memory is.

Premise: More than a fifth of children in Newbury County have been found to have their 30 percent daily food intake to be organic, while the figure is a dismal 9 percent in Hammingsport County. Also, 40 percent of children in Newbury County public schools are competitive in state-level spelling bee competitions, while only 15 percent of children in Hammingsport County public schools can reach that level.

To strengthen the argument, we need to emphasize on the fact that only and only organic food is the reason behind better performance of children in Newbury county and no additional factorbleads to better performance.
Choice E i.e. :There is no special spelling bee coaching available to children in Newbury County public schools.' appropriately strengthens the argument.
E is the answer IMO

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wadhwakaran · Answer

A. In Chess, children in Hammingsport County public schools are as good as children in Newbury County public schools. Irrelevant because we don’t know whether chess is a game which requires retention or not

B. Hammingsport County children are less interested in state-level competitions than are children from Newbury County. Weakens the conclusion as it says the HS county members percentage is low because they don’t participate.

C. Children who are competitive in spelling bee competitions normally prefer organic food. We have to prove the reverse.

D. Switching to organic food can lead to immediate improvement in information retention capacity. This is my conclusion

E. There is no special spelling bee coaching available to children in Newbury County public schools. This is the answer and it correctly says there is no special coaching but organic food only which is the cause of children winning prize in SB contest

Bunuel · Answer

Experts' Global Video Explanation:

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TBT · Answer

I got the answer correct because E was the best choice. But can someone explain why D is wrong? Is it because of "immediate"?

ajay0520 · Answer

I still feel Option D is correct 
organic food(cause) ---------> improved result in spelling ...(result)
option E points out that there is no special class provided to students of Newbury County hence removes a possible cause of the result seen. it rules out one possible cause strengthning the cause effect relationship mentioned. 
but 
 OPTION D  ( Switching to organic food can lead to immediate improvement in information retention capacity) directly comes out as an evidence.(additional premices)

can someone explain why My reasoning is worng

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

Please don't study this question. This is a great example of why it's best to study official questions. First, the writing doesn't make sense. The second sentence has no clear meaning; there's no way to tell which percentages it's actually talking about. Second, the kind of evidence presented is too weak to really do anything. Why would we think that what 1/5 of kids eat explains why 2/5 of kids do well in spelling bees?

I can see where E is coming from, but the argument doesn't make enough sense for this to work as a clear strengthener, especially since there's still a huge gap between "this helped" and "this is a must." There's no evidence for that actual conclusion at all!

JuniqueLid · Answer

Despite the imperfection in the wording, I think the logic here for E is still stronger than D.

The author’s claim is that organic food “is a must”, which is quite strong. A strengthener will be either ruling out an alternative explanation or show a direct causal relationship between the premises and the conclusion. E does the former.

D has merits and I dwelled on it for a bit but eventually think it fails by introducing a new population - switchers. Basically this option presents that there is a causal relationship for the switchers but it does not necessarily strengthen or weaken the original argument. But the passage is about current dietary pattern differences and their correlation with spelling bee results. Newbury’s students may have been on organic foods for a long time to get the result.

Not a perfect test to use but negation can still help in confirming that E is superior to D. Negating D by saying “switching to organic food does not yield immediate improvements in info retention” does not weaken the conclusion. Whereas negating E clearly weakens the causal link and strong necessity stated in the conclusion.

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

First, be careful with that Assumption Test. That only applies to Assumption questions, and nothing else. That's because assumptions are supposed to be something NECESSARY to the argument, so when we negate them, the argument fails. Strengtheners don't have to be necessary, so the Assumption Test is not safe to use on Strengthen questions. It might cause you to eliminate an answer that actually does strengthen the argument.

Second, try not to think in terms of "superior." The right answer should be right, and all the wrong answers should be wrong. In this case, it's not very clear that D is wrong (switching could still be beneficial even if no one has switched in these groups) or that E is right. This is especially true since either answer addresses why we MUST use organic food, as opposed to just saying it's helpful. That's why this isn't a valid question. I'd get into the details, but we're really much better off studying well-written questions.

The more organic food children have, the more developed their memory

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The more organic food children have, the more developed their memory

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