PT15.S2.Q08 - toxic substances food supply

K

I wasn't able to figure out the conclusion.

Please help!

Emily

Hi K.M., this argument is tricky because there is no "since X, so therefore Y" structure. The way I went about looking for the conclusion was to contrapose the "only if" statement. In other words, I broke the argument down this way:

Would it be right for the government to do "X"?
Only if "Y"
However, evidence of "NOT Y"
Furthermore, more evidence of "NOT Y"

So when you push the contrapositive back, it leads to the conclusion that it is not right for the government to do "X. At this point, you can fill in what X is. This leads to the conclusion that it is not right for the government to abandon efforts to determine at what levels to allow toxic substances.

Hope this helped!

K

Wow thanks so much for the swift reply! That helped a lot.

Onamshin

Now I see how I am suppose to use that lesson, and I must go back to it. Thank you

TheWayNorth

Can't seem to find the reason for why choice A is correct but B is incorrect.

Please #help

NerfThis

@TheWayNorth said:
Can't seem to find the reason for why choice A is correct but B is incorrect.

Please #help

The stimulus starts by asking the question essentially asking

'would it be okay if the government got rid of all the regulations regarding toxic substances in food'

This is our sufficient condition of the entire argument. Immediately after the question we see Only if, introducing our necessary condition, which states 'only if we can literally 100% eliminate toxic substances in food' but the author continues essentially elaborating.

He takes the word 'toxic' literally by saying technically some foods naturally have toxic substances but its so little its no problem. Furthermore, he points out the fact that detection of substances are ultimately limited by human technology and therefore we can't even know if we literally have zero toxic substances on food.

All of this is basically a big fat way of denying the necessary condition, pointing out only if we achieve these obviously practically impossible conditions can we have the sufficient. Deny the necessary, you deny the sufficient

'would it be okay if the government got rid of all the regulations regarding toxic substances in food'

which is (A) basically saying the government shouldn't rid their regulations and continue to regulate what is acceptable.

(B) is incorrect because the author is basically saying zero toxic is impossible. As he takes the idea of zero literally. Absolute zero in literally every single thing considered food.

TheWayNorth

Thank you for this explanation. Much appreciated!