Self-study
Monroe, despite his generally poor appetite, thoroughly enjoyed the three meals he ate at the Tip-Top Restaurant, but, unfortunately, Support after each meal he became ill. ███ █████ ████ ██ ███ ██ ███████████ ███████ █████ ████ █ ████ █████ ██ ███ ████████ ███ ██████ ████ ██ ████ ████ █████████ ██ ███ ███████████████ █████ ██████ ███ ███ ███████ ████████ ███ ███ █████ ████ ██ ███ ███ ██ ███████████ █████ ████████ ██████████ ████ ███ ████████ █████ ███ ████ ████ ███ █████ █████ ███ ██ ██████ ███ ███ ███ ████████ ██████ █████████ ████ ██ ██ ██████ ███ ██ ███████████ ███ ███████ ████ ██ ██████ ████
Argument Breakdown
Monroe, who usually doesn't eat much, has fallen ill three times after eating at the Tip-Top Restaurant. He concludes that his three bouts of illness were fully attributable to the hot peppers at the Tip-Top Restaurant. Monroe's evidence for this is that all three meals he ate before falling ill contained hot peppers, and this was the only ingredient they had in common.
Monroe is making a causal argument, based on an observed correlation. We know for a fact that Monroe ate these meals just before falling ill, and that hot peppers were the only ingredient the meals had in common. That's the correlation that Monroe uses to establish a causal relationship: that hot peppers caused his illness.
21.
If both Monroe’s conclusion and ███ ████████ ██ █████ ██ █████ ██ ███ ████████ ████ █████ ███████ ███ █████████ ███████ ███ █████ ███ ██ ███ ██████████
a
Monroe can eat ███ ██ ███████████ █████ ███████████████ ████████ ███████ ████████ ███ ██ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ███████ ███ ███ ████████
Even if the hot peppers were the only item responsible for Monroe's past illness, that doesn't mean hot peppers are the only item that can possibly make Monroe ill. If another daily special contains a new ingredient—for example, pickled onions—it's still entirely possible that ingredient could make Monroe ill. The argument doesn't support (A) because (A) makes too broad a claim about future possibilities.
b
If, at his █████ ████ ██ ████████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ███ █████ ███████ ████ ███ ████████ ██ █████ ████ ██████ ███ █████ ████ █████
We're taking for granted that the hot peppers were responsible for Monroe's illness, so we can infer that if Monroe had eaten another dish with hot peppers, he would still have become ill. (B) is just a specific instance of that inference, so the argument strongly supports (B). It doesn't matter what else might have been different about the chicken; we know the hot peppers would still have made Monroe ill.
c
If the next ████ ██████ ████ ███ ██ ███████████ ███████████ ███████ ██████ ██ ████ ███ ████ █ ████ █████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ████ ███ ██████ ███ █████ ███ █████
(C) is making a claim about what will happen in the future, but this is much harder to support. We don't know what could change between now and Monroe's next meal at Tip-Top; for instance, maybe Tip-Top will change their sausage pizza recipe to include something that makes Monroe ill. Maybe they'll even put hot peppers right on the pizza!
(C) is a really attractive answer because it relies on similarity to the stimulus—(C) is analogizing to a similar situation in the future. But to guarantee the analogy, we would need to assume that everything would be the same as Monroe's past meals. Because we can't guarantee all these conditions will stay the same in the future, (C) is not strongly supported.
d
Before eating Tip-Top’s █████ ██████ ████ ███ ███████ ████████ ██████ ███ █████ █████ ██████ ███████ █████████ ███ ███ ████████
All the argument tells us about shrimp is that when eating shrimp at Tip-Top, Monroe got sick just because of the hot peppers. But that doesn't tell us anything about Monroe's prior shrimp experiences. Maybe he had never eaten fried shrimp before; maybe he previously ate expired fried shrimp and got sick. All of these different possibilities could equally be true based on the argument, so we can't say (D) is strongly supported.
e
The only place ██████ ███ █████ ███ ███████ ███ ████ ██ ████████
This claim is way too broad to be supported by the argument. Based on the argument, it's entirely possible that Monroe has eaten hot peppers before, whether or not they previously made him ill. The argument doesn't give us any information about Monroe's past hot pepper encounters.