Self-study
Scientist: Support Laboratory animals have access to ample food, and they get relatively little exercise. █████ ███████ ███ ████ ███ ███████ ██ ████████ █████ ████████ █████ ████ ███████ █████ ████ ██ ███ ██████████ ████ ███ ██████ ████████ ███ ████████ ███ █████████ ██████ ███████ ████ ███████ ██ ████ ████ ███████ ███████ ███████████ ███ ██████ █████████ ████ ███ ███████ ████ █████ ████████ ████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ █████
Summary
Animal research may be unreliable. The scientist believes this to be true because these studies assume the animals are healthy, but they are given plenty of food and little exercise.
Notable Assumptions
The scientist is implying that the belief of these studies (animals are healthy) is untrue. However, jumping from ample food and little exercise to unhealthy is an assumption.
6.
The scientist's argument requires assuming █████ ███ ██ ███ ██████████
a
Laboratory animals are ███████ ██ ████ ███ ███ █ █████████ ██████████ ████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ █████████
We don’t need to know what happens if you do these things, we need to know what happens if you don’t do these things.
If negated, (A) says “If fed a carefully restricted diet and given plenty of exercise, a laboratory animal may or may not be healthy.” This doesn’t destroy our argument; it just means that health isn’t guaranteed through careful diet and exercise.
b
Laboratory conditions that ███████ ███████ ████ █████ ████ ███ ██████████ ██████ ████████ ███ ██ █████████ ███ ███ ████████
This must be true. If it isn’t, there’s no reason to entertain the scientist’s implication that researchers have made these animals unhealthy.
c
It is not ███████ ███ ███████ ███████ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ █████ ████ ███ ███ ██████████ ██████ █████████
We are not discussing animals outside of laboratory settings. Also, (B) does not address what could make an animal unhealthy, and that is the bridge we need to build.
d
Some animal studies ████ ████ █████████████ ███ ███████████ ███████ ███ ██████ ██████████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ███ █████ ██ █████ ████████
It doesn’t matter if they do or not. We’re looking at actual practice (ample food, low exercise) and how that might impact health.
Also, “take into consideration” doesn’t mean they’re doing anything about it, and even if they do, we wouldn’t know what those actions are.
e
When provided with █████████ ████ ████ █ ████ ██████ ██ █████ ███████ ████ ██████ ██████████ █████████ ██ █████ ██████ ███████
The argument doesn’t say unlimited, it says ample (which could be unlimited—but we don’t know).
Also, we don’t know what their baseline eating habits are.
Lastly, (E) doesn’t address health.