PrepTest 15 - Section 2 - Question 8 | Explanation & Discussion

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Would it be right for the government to abandon efforts to determine at what levels to allow toxic substances in our food supply. ████ ██ ██ ███ ██████████ ██ ██████ ████ ███ ████ ██████████ █████ ██ █████ ██████████ ██ ████ ██ █████ ████████ █████████ ███ █████ ███████ █████████ ███████ ██████████ ████ ███ █████ ███ █████ ██ ████ ███████ ████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ████ ██ █████ ███████████████ ████████████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ███████ ██ ██████ ███████ ███ █████████████ ██ ███ █████████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ ████ ████ ██ ████ ██ ███ ████ ███████ ██ █████ ███ █████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███████ ██████████ ████████

Argument Breakdown: Implied Conclusion

The argument starts with a question: should the government abandon efforts to set the acceptable levels of toxic substances in food? We then get a conditional claim about the answer to this question: we can say "yes" only if it's reasonable to set the acceptable levels at zero.

The rest of the argument triggers this conditional. We see that it's unreasonable to set the levels at zero, because almost all foods have some harmless level of toxic substances. It's further unreasonable because we can't actually know if foods have zero toxic substances; we can only know they have very small amounts of toxic substances.

The argument denies the necessary condition of it being reasonable to set toxic substance levels at zero. This lets us deny the sufficient condition as well, which implicitly answers the question of what the government should do. The conclusion is thus that the government should not abandon its efforts.

The main conclusion of the ████████ ██ ████

the government should ████████ ██████ ██ █████████ ██████████ ██████ ███ █████ ██████████ ██ ███ ████ ██████

In other words, the government should not abandon its efforts—which is the unstated conclusion supported by the argument. The argument sets up a necessary condition for when abandoning the efforts would be acceptable: only if it's reasonable to set the acceptable levels at zero. It then denies this necessary condition, showing that it's unreasonable to do so. This lets us deny the sufficient condition, showing that the government shouldn't abandon its efforts.

77%

the only acceptable █████ ██ █████ ██████████ ██ ████ ██ ████

This isn't a claim the argument makes. In fact, the argument tells us that it's unreasonable to set the acceptable level to zero. This is because almost all foods contain harmless, but non-zero levels of toxic substances. So there's no need to set the level to zero. We also can't tell the difference between a level of zero and a very low non-zero level, so setting the level to zero wouldn't make sense.

naturally occurring toxic ██████████ ██ ████ ███████ ██████ ██████ ███████ ████ ██████ █████ ██ █████ ██████████████

This isn't a claim the argument makes, although it gets close to a real claim. The argument tells us that most foods have harmless levels of naturally toxic substances. But the point isn't that naturally toxic substances aren't dangerous—it's that it would be unreasonable to set the acceptable level of toxic substances to zero.

And even if (C) were more accurate, this claim is a premise, not a conclusion. It works to deny the necessary condition for when the government could abandon its efforts, leading to the unstated conclusion that the government should not abandon its efforts.

the government will █████ ██ ████ ██ █████████ ████ █████████ ████ █ ████ ████████ ██ █████ ██████████

This is a premise used to support the main conclusion, not a conclusion itself. The argument as a whole aims at answering the question of whether the government should abandon its efforts to set acceptable toxic substance levels. The conclusion is the answer to this question: no. (D) helps to reach this conclusion by denying a condition necessary for the government to abandon its efforts.

16%

the government needs ██ ██████ ███ ███████ ██ █████████ █████ ██████████ ██ ███ ████ ██████

This isn't a claim the argument makes. Although the argument discusses the imperfect state of toxic substance detection, it's not trying to say that we should improve these methods. Instead, the limits of detection show that it's unreasonable to set the acceptable level at zero, which supports the conclusion that the government should keep trying to set levels.

PrepTest 15 - Section 2 - Question 8

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