Self-study
Although high cholesterol levels have been associated with the development of heart disease, many people with high cholesterol never develop heart disease, while many without high cholesterol do. █████████ █████ ███████ ██████████████ ██ ███ █████ ████████ ██████████████ ████ █████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ████ ██████ █████ █████ ███████ ███ ███ ████████████ ██ █████ ███████ ███████ ███████ ████ ██████ ███████████ ██████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ ██████████████ ███████ ██████ █████ ██ ██ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ ████ ███████ ███████ ███ ███ ████ ██ ██████████ █████ ████████
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that there is no reason for anyone to make dietary changes in order to prevent heart disease. Why? Because one potential cause of heart disease, lipoprotein(a), isn’t affected by dietary changes that do lower cholesterol. And high cholesterol is correlated with heart disease.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The author concludes that dietary changes won’t impact heart disease risk for anyone, but his only support is that they don’t lower lipoprotein(a) levels. What if there was another causal pathway whereby dietary changes could mitigate heart disease risk?
In fact, the author already gave us a good candidate for this: cholesterol, which has been associated with heart disease and which is affected by dietary changes.
19.
Which one of the following ████ ██████████ █████████ █ ████ ██ ███ █████████
a
It fails to ████████ ███ ███████████ ████ ██████████████ ██████ ███████████ ███████
Descriptively accurate but not why the reasoning is flawed. Suppose Lipoprotein(a) raises cholesterol. Then that would present another potential path to mitigating heart disease risk. But we’re still left wondering why the author argues against dietary changes which presents an independent potential path to mitigating heart disease risk.
b
It provides no ████████ ███ █ ████ ███████ ██████████████ ███ █████ ████████
Descriptively inaccurate. The author does present
c
It presents but ███████ ████████ █████ ███ ████ ███████ ████ ███████████ ███████████ ██ █████ ████████
The author presents evidence that high cholesterol contributes to heart disease—namely, that the two have been associated. (Correlation is evidence for but not proof of causation.) The author then ignores the possibility that a low cholesterol diet could mitigate heart disease risk.
d
It fails to ████████ ███ ███████████ ████ ████ █████ █████ ████ ██████ ██ ███████ ██████ ████████ █████ ████ █████ ████████
Descriptively accurate but not why the reasoning is flawed. The fact that poor diets could cause, say, diabetes has nothing to do with why the author does not recommend dietary changes to mitigate heart disease risk.
e
It offers no ███████████ ███ ███ ████ ██████ ████ ████ ███████████ ██████ █████ ███████ █████ ████████
Descriptively accurate but not why the reasoning is flawed. Even if we had an explanation of why the correlation between high cholesterol and heart disease isn’t perfect, i.e., why some people with high cholesterol levels never develop heart disease, we would still be left wondering why the author argues against dietary changes to mitigate heart disease risk.