Premise: Reducing the nicotine per cigarette will cause people to smoke more cigarettes.girishj wrote:Since smoking-related illnesses are a serious health problem in Country X, and since addiction to nicotine prevents many people from quitting smoking, the government of Country X plans to reduce the maximum allowable quantity of nicotine per cigarette by half over the next five years. However, reducing the quantity of nicotine per cigarette will probably cause people addicted to nicotine to smoke more cigarettes. Therefore implementing this plan is unlikely to reduce the incidence of smoking related illnesses.
Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the argument about the consequences of implementing the Country X government's plan.
(A) Over half of the nonsmoking adults in Country X have smoked cigarettes in the past.
(B) If the Country X government's plan is implemented, the brands of cigarettes sold in Country X will differ less from each other than they do now in terms of their nicotine content.
(C) Inexpensive, smoke-free sources of nicotine, such as nicotine gum and nicotine skin patches, have recently become available in Country X.
(D) Many smokers in Country X already spend a large proportion of their disposable income on cigarettes.
(E) The main cause of smoking-related illnesses is not nicotine but tar in cigarette smoke.
Conclusion: Therefore the implementation of the plan will not reduce the incidence of smoking related health issues.
(A) This is irrelevant to an argument about the effects on people who smoke currently of a plan to reduce nicotine per cigarette.
(B) This sounds interesting but actually indicates little to nothing relevant to the argument. What it indicates is that currently some brands of cigarettes sold in Country X have higher nicotine levels than others do. However we don't know which brands are popular or anything much else that combined with what this answer choice says either weakens or supports the argument.
We already have reason to believe that the government's plan will reduce the level of nicotine per cigarette in some brands. So really what this choice says merely confirms that belief by indicating that the brands with higher levels of nicotine will become more like the brands that currently have lower levels.
(C) This does not support the argument. If anything it weakens the argument, as if cigarettes come to contain less nicotine people may decide to use one of the available alternative nicotine sources instead of cigarettes.
(D) This weakens the argument in that if people are already spending a large proportion of their income on cigarettes, they may be resistant to increasing their use of cigarettes.
(E) This supports the conclusion that the incidence of smoking-related illnesses will not be reduced by the implementation of the plan, in that if it is correct that people will smoke more cigarettes if there is less nicotine per cigarette, then given the information in this answer choice they will be taking in more tar, which is what causes smoking-related health problems.
The correct answer is E.
