A study of 20 overweight men revealed that each man experienced

Question

A study of 20 overweight men revealed that each man experienced significant weight loss after adding SlimDown, an artificial food supplement, to his daily diet. For 3 months, each man consumed one SlimDown portion every morning after excercising, and then followed his normal diet for the rest of the day. Clearly, anyone who consumes one portion of SlimDown everyday for at least 3 months will lose weight and will look and feel his best.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A. The men in the study will gain back the weight if they discontinue the SlimDown.

B. No other dietary supplement will have the same effect on overweight men.

C. The daily exercise regimen was not responsible for the effects noted in the study.

D. Women won't experience similar weight reductions if they adhere to the SlimDown program for 3 months.

E. Overweight men will acheive only partial weight loss if they don't remain on the SlimDown program for a full 3 months.

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chloreton · Answer

Option C is correct, since if you negate it, it tells "The daily exercise regimen  was responsible  for the effects noted in the study" which weakens the claim that it was due to SllimDown.

dhart · Answer

Arguments says abput the dose of of slimdown sipplement , so option c must work , also negating this assumption the agrument get weakened

vasu1104 · Answer

study of 20 overweight man.
it revealed that they had significant weight loss after adding slimdown, an artificial food sup, to their daily diet.
for 3 months, each person had this artificial diet after that morning workout and then followed their normal diet.

conclusion= anyone who consume one portion of this diet for at least 3 months will loose weight.

so they are assuming that there is no other reason for the weight lose other than the Slimdown. what if they were under intense exercise program or some additional weight loss medication or their normal diet is completely different than other peoples normal diet? so author assumed all this factors had no impct but only slimdown.

A that means Slimdown was the reason. so this doesnt attack the conclusion at all. out.
B thats why author argued to use slimdown to lose weight. out.
C perfect. it rules out alternative cause for the effect. keep.
D but they can have some weight reduction. we dont need to compare same level of weight reduction here. out.
E but that still helps and reinforce the belief in following the diet. so out.

choice C

Vivek1707 · Answer

A. What happens after stopping SlimDown doesn't matter to the conclusion.
B. The argument doesn't need to rule out other supplements.
C. Correct If exercise was actually responsible for the weight loss, we can't credit SlimDown. So the argument must assume exercise wasn't responsible.
D. The conclusion is about overweight people using SlimDown, not specifically women.
E. The argument doesn't say anything about taking SlimDown for less than three months.

counterclash1 · Answer

Answer: Option C

STIMULUS SUMMARY:
- Premise: 20 men exercised daily AND took SlimDown -> lost weight.
- Conclusion: SlimDown caused the weight loss.

LOGICAL GAP:
The argument ignores the confounding variable (daily exercise). To claim SlimDown caused the weight loss, the author MUST assume exercise was not the true cause.

NEGATION TEST ON (C):
- "Exercise WAS responsible for the weight loss."
- Negated statement completely destroys the conclusion. -> Valid Assumption.

OPTION ELIMINATION:
(A) Out of Scope. What happens after the 3-month study does not affect results during the study.
(B) Irrelevant. SlimDown doesn't need to be the ONLY working product to be effective.
 (C) CORRECT. Negation destroys the causal claim. 
(D) Out of Scope. Proving it works on men does not require it to fail on women.
(E) Scope Shift. Partial weight loss before 3 months is outside the stated 3-month timeline.

Bunuel · Answer

KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

Step 1: Preview the question stem. 
We see, quite clearly, that we're dealing with an Assumption question. So we can immediately adopt an "assumption mindset," which means that before even reading the stimulus, we know that the conclusion will be lacking an important piece of supporting evidence. We now turn to the stimulus, already on the lookout for this missing link.

Step 2: Read the stimulus. 
Sentence 1 introduces a study of 20 men using a food supplement product, resulting in weight loss for all 20. Sentence 2 describes how they used it: once a day, for 3 months, after morning exercise. So far so good; it feels as if we're building up to something. The key word  clearly  usually indicates that some sort of conclusion follows, and in fact it does: Sentence 3 says that anyone who has one portion of the product daily for 3 months will lose weight, too.

You must read critically! The conclusion doesn't say that anyone who follows the same routine as the 20 men will have the same results; it says that anyone who  simply consumes the product  will have the same results. You should have begun to sense the inevitable lack of crucial information at this point. The evidence in sentence 2 describes a routine that includes taking the supplement after daily exercise, whereas the conclusion focuses primarily on the supplement and entirely ignores the part about the exercise. The conclusion, therefore, doesn't stem logically from the evidence in the first two sentences. This blends seamlessly into Step 3.

Step 3: Prephrase an answer: 
As expected, it's beginning to look like the argument has a serious shortcoming. Of course, we expected this because we previewed the question stem before reading the stimulus. In simplistic terms, the argument proceeds like so: "A bunch of guys did A and B for 3 months and had X result. If anyone does A for 3 months, that person will experience X result, too." Sound fishy? You bet. The author must be assuming that A (the product), not B (exercise), must be the cause that leads to the result. If not (here is the Denial Test), the conclusion makes no sense.

So, you might prephrase the answer like this: "Something about the exercise thing needs to be cleared up" That's it Did you think your prephrasing had to be something fancy and glamorous? Well, it doesn't. So, with our vague idea of a possible assumption, we can turn to Step 4.

Step 4: Choose on answer. 
Because we were able to prephrase something, it's best to skim the choices looking for it. And, lo and behold, there's our idea, stated in choice (C). (C) clears up the exercise issue. Yes, this author must assume (C) to make the conclusion that eating SlimDown alone will cause people to lose weight.

At this point, if you're stuck for time, pick (C) and move on. If you have more time, check the remaining choices quickly, to double-check that none of them fits the bill. Be ready to dismiss the other choices unless they make a strong case for themselves. Since the difficulty in Critical Reasoning is often in the choices (rather than the stimulus), you can't let them make you indecisive.

A study of 20 overweight men revealed that each man experienced

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A study of 20 overweight men revealed that each man experienced