According to a recent study, a diet that is free of meat and dairy pro

Question

According to a recent study, a diet that is free of meat and dairy products greatly reduces the risk of suffering a heart attack. The study cites the fact that only 10 percent of those who consume such a diet suffer a heart attack at some point in their lives.

Which of the following would most seriously weaken the argument above?

(A) Diets free of meat and dairy are low in calcium, which can lead to bone density decreases

(B) Those who consume only dairy but not meat are twice as likely to suffer a heart attack as those who consume neither meat nor dairy

(C) Some people who consume neither dairy nor meat suffer two or more heart attacks over the course of a lifetime

(D) Meat and dairy products are high in low-density cholesterol, which is known to harden arteries and cause other heart problems

(E) Of those who consume dairy and meat, 7 % regularly suffer heart attacks over the course of their lifetime"

My answer is A, however KAPLAN says E. Can anyone please explain (not the same explanation as KAPLAN)

jallenmorris · Answer

A addresses bone density issues which have nothing to do with heart attacks. E discusses heart attacks and shows that those who maintain a diet that includes dairy and meat actually have a lower rate of heart attack (7% as compared to dairy and meet-free diets' rate of 10%). This fact hurts the argument. At first you think "Oh, 10%, that's really low. Sounds like a great idea!" but then you realize that if you do eat dairy and meet, you'd lower that percentage from 10% to 7% you're better off. That undermines the conclusion in the stem.

synecdoche · Answer

Yeah, I do understand bone diseases have nothing to do with heart attacks, however, it shows not having a diet with meat and dairy can also lead to some other problems. For E, at the time solving the question, I felt " regularly  suffer heart attacks" is a little strong.

tuanquang269 · Answer

Easy choice E show that eating dairy and meat help people healthier than not eating (diet). Therefore, the usefulness of diet is broken.

Choice A is irrelevant becauz it talk about bone density that is out of scope.

mohnish104 · Answer

I don't understand how E is the answer. It states that 7% of the people regularly get heart attacks. What abt the others? They might not suffer from regular bouts but they might def get 'a' heart attack. The conclusion clearly states that a diet free of diet and meat reduces the chance of 'a' heart attack. C is not strong but is clearly the more feasible option here.

lMarial · Answer

I think that E is correct.
'...the fact that ONLY 10% suffer a heart attack at SOME POINT in their lives ' means that nobody else experience a heart attack at all, but 10% do it at least once.
E indicates that '7% REGULARLY suffer heart attacks'. So, we may conclude that actually 10% suffer h.a. at some point , and there are other people who experience them more than once (regularly).

A is irrelevant. It says nothing about h.a. We don't care about other desease.

GMAT888 · Answer

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I still have problems with E. I believe pretty much the only way E can be right is if we assume that on top of 10% who have "a heart attack" there is additional 7% who have regular heart attacks. Thus, the total number of people who suffer a heart attack either once or many times is 17%.

However, the problem with such reasoning is that "only 10 percent of those who consume such a diet suffer a heart attack at some point in their lives" is not equivalent to "only 10% suffer heart attack only once in their lives". It actually makes you believe that "only 10% suffer a heart attack at least once".

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Lapetiteflo · Answer

I typically do not understand this kind of questions/answers. the only think I know from now on for the GMAT CR is that we need to pay attention to the words and here saying that 7% suffered 2 or more heart attacks does not help us in the argument concerning "a hear attack" ! maybe 20% of regular eater suffered a heart attack, among which 7%... 
I am lot better for quant section and I have trouble to understand when we have to take care of the words in themselves ("only", "no",...) in answers or not. Here I answered C which was the best answer I thought and quite the opposite of the true OA. Could you explain that to me ?
Thanks !

akadmin · Answer

Nice one, can anyone tell me what pattern type does it fall under. When I mean pattern type I mean is it cause and effect or sample size question or what?

Abhishek009 · Answer

The highlighted part of the stimulus is the main conclusion which we have to weaken. Food - ( Meat + Dairy Products ) = Reduced risk of Heart Attack. The blue highlighted part refers to those who consumes diety free of meat and dairy products. Let there be 100 people who consumes diety free of meat and dairy products. Out of those 100 people 10 suffer from a heat atatck and 90 doesn't suffer from a heart attack. Since Only 10% suffer from a heat atatck we are led to believe that consuming diety free of meat and dairy products will not lead to heart attack. Now lets's explore all the options. A) Diets free of meat and dairy are low in calcium , which can lead to bone density decreases Out of scope and irrelevant B) Those who consume only dairy but not meat are twice as likely to suffer a heart attack as those who consume neither meat nor dairy Comparing risk of heart attack without any data , hence is not a good option. C) Some people who consume neither dairy nor meat suffer two or more heart attacks over the course of a lifetime Reduces the arguement to subsets of those who consume neither dairy nor meat products , without weakening the conclusion. D) Meat and dairy products are high in low-density cholesterol, which is known to harden arteries and cause other heart problems Strengthens the conclusion instead of wekening it. E) Of those who consume dairy and meat, 7 % regularly suffer heart attacks over the course of their lifetime" This reduces the arguement to the risk of heart attacks as - Consuming dairy and meat products ( 7% ) < Consuming food free of dairy and meat products (10%) This refers to the conlcusion that people consuming food free of dairy and meat product has a greater chance of heart attack than those who consumes dairy and meat products , which clearly weakens the arguement. Hence answer is (E) I am going to classify it as a sample size ( Survey based ) Question!! :-D

mvictor · Answer

I go with E as well, although I doubt that the GMAT will throw at you such a direct answer!!!

mihir0710 · Answer

Passage Says : only 10% of People who eats diet free of diary and meat products suffer from HA.

Lets say there are 100 people who eat diet free of diary and meat products
of this 10 people suffer from Heart Attack.

Now, we have to weaken this argument.
This can be done by providing proof that No. or % of people who eat dairy product and suffer from Heart Attack is less that above category.
Which is exactly what Option E is saying.

Only 7% who eat meat and diary product suffer from Heart Attack. (Which is 7 on a scale of 100)

Hope this helps ...
Kudos if you the solution and method....

Bunuel · Answer

KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

E

The conclusion here is that a diet free of meat and dairy products greatly reduces the risk of heart attack, based on the evidence that only 10% of those who omit meat and dairy from their diets suffer heart attacks. The assumption is that more than 10% of those who do eat dairy and meat suffer from heart attacks. If we knew that those who eat meat and dairy are less likely to suffer heart attacks, the assumption would be contradicted and the argument weakened.

(A) is out of scope. A loss of bone density might be an argument against this diet, but it is irrelevant to the passage. (B) comes closer to strengthening the argument than weakening it, by providing evidence that people who eat meat are more likely to have heart attacks. But it is still out of scope, since the passage doesn't mention people who eat meat but not dairy. (C) tells us that some of the people who eat neither meat nor dairy have more than one heart attack. Because we do not have a parallel statistic telling us how many dairy- and meat-eating heart attack sufferers experience more than one heart attack, this information does little to affect the argument in either direction. (D) strengthens the argument because it explains in more detail exactly how meat and dairy consumption is responsible for heart disease. (E) matches our prediction exactly. If we knew that only 7% of those who consume meat and dairy suffer heart attacks, then the fact that 10% of those who don't consume such foods suffer heart attacks is not evidence that a diet free of meat and dairy reduces the risk of heart attack.

ShankSouljaBoi · Answer

In E , how are we comparing 7% with 10% . We don't know the sample size. 
 chetan2u  please guide.

Posted from my mobile device

chetan2u · Answer

Hi...

The question is dependent on the percentage or fraction itself...
So we have the entire strength as 1000..
400 are on dairy and meat free diet and remaining 600 on dairy and meat..

Now 10% of 400 so 40 are susceptible while 7% of 600 on a meat diet so 42 are susceptible..

Now the number 42 Vs 40 does not mean those on meat diet are more likely.
More likely would depend upon the percentage within their own population.

So 1 out of 2 is more susceptible than 300 out of 1000, as one is 50% and other is 30%.

Thus you do not require the sample size, the % is enough.

vinayakvaish · Answer

Of course one may arrive at E by the process of elimination but E itself is not a very sound choice because of the use of the word "regularly" here.

Consider this:

G1:
Meat and Dairy Free People= 100%
People who get a heart attack at least once ie. 1 heart attack or 2 heart attack or 3 and so on= 10%

G2:
Meat and Dairy People= 100%
People who get regular attacks ie. people with attacks >2 = 7%

notice that attacks>2 is a subset of total attacks ie. 1 attack + attacks >2

since no information is provided about percentage of meat eating people suffering 1 attack only we can not get a total attack percentage and hence can not compare it to group 1 %

Case 1: 1 attack only % > 3% for G2
G2 is more susceptible to heart attacks

Case 2: 1 attack only % < 3% for G2
G1 is more susceptible to heart attacks

Its_me_aka_ak · Answer

NEVER consider KAPLAN source questions for your prep it is the most pathetic source .
In this option E if 7% people get attacks REGULARLY that leaves irregular attacks an assumption to be 0%.
if 7% regular + 0% irregular then it WEKANES 
BUT IF 7% regular + even 5 % regular than it STRENGTHENS the argument so mark my words everyone reading here

rak08 · Answer

by weaken here we are trying to weaken consumption of meat & dairy = suffer H.A ? 
if so then in E if it says 7% of those who consume get H.A frequently is a greater point of concern isnt it?

even though i selected E but i am not sure of logic

A = irrelevant
B = Dairy & meat comparison irrelevant
C = SOME = vague
D = strengthens

According to a recent study, a diet that is free of meat and dairy pro

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