weaken the argument

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weaken the argument

by saurabhdhakad » Sat Aug 17, 2013 10:42 am
It is generally agreed by scientists that the naturally occurring vitamins found in plants and healthy organic dishes are more readily absorbed by the body and more effective once absorbed than the synthesized vitamins found in vitamin pills. Such pills are useless, therefore, and should be avoided as nothing but a waste of money.

The argument above would be most dramatically undermined if which of the following were true?

a.Vitamin pills can cost anywhere from a fraction of a dollar for an inexpensive generic brand to several tens of dollars per day for custom-planned supplement regimens.
b.Nutritionists typically prescribe combined courses of healthy eating and vitamin supplements.
c.Leafy green vegetables and cold-water fish contain the highest concentrations of vitamins among food items.
d.The volume of food required to obtain quantities of vitamins comparable to what is contained in a vitamin pill is effectively impossible to consume on a daily basis
e.Vitamin pills are often manufactured from organic, plant-based materials.

I opted for E , as it highlights what argument failed to consider. If Pills are made from organic matter they are not waste.

D: says you have an advantage of large Vitamin consumption but nowhere argument mentioned , quantity is a concern. It just talks about effectiveness.

Any suggestions would be really helpful.

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by KapTeacherEli » Sat Aug 17, 2013 3:22 pm
Hi saurabhdhakad,

Break the stimulus down. His conclusion is that there is no good use for vitamin pills. What's his evidence? That ones body synthesizes vitamins more effectively from food. But something is missing here; there is a big jump from "less efficient than food" to "totally useless." The author's assumption, therefore, is that there is no benefit to pills--that is, pills can't offer any benefits over food.

Since this is a weaken question, the correct answer will attack that assumption. So, we can predict the form of the right answer: "pills can offer XXXXXXX, and organic food can't." If there is any benefit to pills over and above the benefits of a healthy diet, then the author's conclusion falls apart.

And now, (D) is the only choice that matches that prediction! (D) tells us that pills can give doses of vitamins that are impossible to get from food--efficiency of digestion aside. It's the correct answer, and the rest are just distractors.

I hope this helps!
Eli Meyer
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www.kaptest.com/gmat

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by vinay1983 » Tue Aug 20, 2013 5:50 am
I feel E is the correct option, since it talks about the pills that have been manufactured from Plants, so property wise they should work, hence this option undermines the conclusion.

The passage makes no discussion about Food.I agree with your logic.

lets see what experts say!

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by KapTeacherEli » Tue Aug 20, 2013 9:49 am
vinay1983 wrote:I feel E is the correct option, since it talks about the pills that have been manufactured from Plants, so property wise they should work, hence this option undermines the conclusion.

The passage makes no discussion about Food.I agree with your logic.

lets see what experts say!
"Manufactured from plants" tells us very little about the actual composition of the pills. We don't know if the active or non-active materials are plant based, or to what extent the plants are modified or altered before being put into pill form. For that reason, (B) is too vague and too weak to be the correct answer

Hope this helps!
Eli Meyer
Kaplan GMAT Teacher
Cambridge, MA
www.kaptest.com/gmat

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by Nitin.811g » Sat Aug 24, 2013 9:46 pm
IMO, it should be D.

The conclusion is : The synthesized pills are a waste of money. Now lets look carefully at each option using the S/W analysis (Strengthen/Weaken).

A --> S
B --> Irrelevant
C --> w (Does weaken but not to a great extent), Deeper analysis reveals that it is not tied to the conclusion at all. If leafy veg contains highest nutrients does not mean that pills are waste of money.
D --> W Definitely weakens the conclusion. Since volume from natural foods is not comparable to pills, we cannot conclude that pills are waste of money and hence it should be the correct answer.
E --> Irrelevant Whatever means these pills are manufactured, does not imply that they are a waste of money

Hence the correct answer should be D