Self-study
Dietitian: High consumption of sodium increases some people's chances of developing heart disease. ██ ████████ ███████ ██████ ███████ ████████ ██████ ████████████ ██████████ █████ ██████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██████ ████ ██████ ██ ███████ █████ ███ ███████████ █████ ███ █████████ ██ █████ █████ █████ ██ ███████ ████████ ██████ ████████
Summary
The potassium in plants helps reduce the risk caused by sodium. If people don’t lower their sodium intake but want to reduce the risk caused by sodium, they should eat fresh fruits and vegetables instead of canned or frozen fruits and vegetables.
Notable Assumptions
The argument’s premises discuss how the potassium in plants generally helps reduce sodium risk, but the conclusion adds a new discussion about the difference between fresh and canned/frozen plants. There is some missing assumption here about why the fresh plants are better at providing potassium than the canned/frozen plants.
6.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███ ███████████ █████████
a
Fresh fruits and ██████████ ███████ ████ █████████ ████ ███████
The relative amount of potassium and sodium in the plants doesn’t matter - the argument is only concerned with the fact that the potassium helps counteract the risks caused by sodium consumption more generally.
b
Food processing businesses █████ ███ ██████ ██ █████ █████ ██████ ██ ███████
The relative amount of potassium and sodium in the plants doesn’t matter - the argument is only concerned with the fact that the potassium helps counteract the risks caused by sodium consumption more generally.
c
Potassium is the ████ ███████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ████████ ██████ ████████
The argument doesn’t need potassium to be the only mineral that helps - it already states that potassium does help, and this is true even if there are also other helpful minerals.
d
Potassium in fruits ███ ██████████ ███ ███ ████████ ████ ████████
While this might help explain why people should generally eat fruits and vegetables, the argument is specifically about how the potassium reduces risks from sodium. This could be true even if the potassium had other negative side effects.
e
Fresh fruits and ██████████ ███████ ████ █████████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ ██████ █████
This explains why fresh plants are better for reducing sodium risk than canned/frozen plants. If this weren’t true, and canned/frozen plants contained as much potassium, then there would be no reason to believe the argument’s conclusion that fresh plants are better for people trying to reduce the risks of sodium consumption.