53.1.10 Public health experts

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I didn't mark this for BR, so I was pretty surprised I missed it. I still don't see how E doesn't strengthen the argument. Here is my breakdown:

Public health dudes have waged a long term education campaign to get people to eat their vegetables. The campaign isn't working since people haven't changed their diet. This is probably due to the fact that vegetables taste terrible. Thus, the campaign would be more successful if included ways to make vegetables more appetizing.

What I am looking for: We want to strengthen the argument. The argument is pretty prescriptive, so any evidence that making vegetables appetizing would lead to people eating more vegetables would strengthen the argument.

Answer A: Who cares about the people who already love vegetables? This isn't the group the conclusion is concerning itself with.

Answer B: This would weaken the argument I think since making the vegetables appetizing would defeat a purpose of the campaign.

Answer C: I think this weakens the argument as well since it suggests that making the vegetables appetizing wouldn't do anything.

Answer This is apparently the correct answer, but I take issue with the word "how." The conclusion/prescription isn't talking about the PEOPLE making the vegetables more appetizing, but the CAMPAIGN making the vegetables appear more appetizing. I don't see how this shift allows you to conclude that this is the correct answer.

Answer E: I just don't see what is wrong with this one. If the only way to make the campaign more effective is to ensure that ALL people (which would encompass the people in line 5-6 since it is a "many"/some statement) who dislike the taste of certain vegetables learns to find those vegetables appealing, then wouldn't this hugely strengthen the prescription? This to me is an obvious answer choice.

EmergingAttorney180

I'm just going to talk about D and E here, since those are the 2 answer choices you seemed to struggle with.

The author is arguing that if the educational campaign included information on ways to make vegetables more appetizing, the campaign's effectiveness would be increased. Why should we believe that? Well, most people dislike the taste of most vegetables.

First, we must define "effectiveness" here. The goal of the campaign is to get people to eat more vegetables. So I'm going to equate "more effective" with "people start eating more vegetables."

The gap here, quite simply, is that we don't know if people will actually EAT more vegetables just because they KNOW HOW to make them more appetizing.

Answer choice D strengthens the argument nicely. So most of the population doesn't like vegetables- we know that. Well, D says if they knew HOW to make them more appetizing, they would eat more (ie- the campaign would be more effective).

The author is arguing in his conclusion that if we included information on ways to make vegetables more appetizing, than people would eat more. By giving them this information (telling them hey, you know HOW you can make broccoli taste awesome- throw some cheese on it!) D says that giving them the information will actually make people eat much more. It fills the gap almost perfectly.

E is wrong because, first of all, I don't like the use of "the only" here. It just feels wrong to be so restrictive in this type of strengthening question. But primarily, E is wrong because it ignores the problem in the argument. We still don't KNOW that if we provide information to people on how to make broccoli more appetizing, they will actually learn to find broccoli appetizing. What if most people in America won't find broccoli appetizing no matter how much cheese you put on it? Maybe everyone who doesn't like vegetables will only eat pizza and hamburgers.