Critical Reasoning

A public health official reported that 60 percent of the children at summer school have never had the measles or chicken pox, and that of this 60 percent not one child has ever been observed to eat the cheese served in the school lunches. From this he concluded that children who abstain from cheese products will protect themselves from most childhood disease.

Each of the following, if true, would strengthen the official's argument EXCEPT:

(A) Medically speaking, whatever serves to inhibit measles and chicken pox will generally inhibit the entire spectrum of childhood diseases.
(B) The observations the official carried out were extremely accurate, and all those observed to abstain from cheese at school did, in fact, abstain.
(C) The children's eating habits are the same at school as anywhere else, and those who abstain from cheese products at school do so in general.
(D) Recent research has pointed to a deficiency in cheese products as one of the major causes of measles and chicken pox infections.
(E) Most cheeses and cheese products harbor bacteria that are known to be causative agents for many childhood diseases, such as measles and chicken pox.

OA is D

Source- Kaplan 800

Thanks for posting this one Bharat. It makes me a little nervous about eating cheese! Although I am sure it is not true. Everyone knows you get chicken pox from eating chicken!

We have an EXCEPT question, right? So any answer choice that does strengthen is eliminated.

A) this certainly strengthens since it is a direct link to his conclusion of protecting form childhood disease.

B) This strengthens since it makes more reliable the report that none of the disease-free kids ate cheese.

C) This strengthens very much - since we only know that the kids did not eat cheese at school and this makes that apply to their whole diet.

D) This is the opposite of what we want to see! "Cheese deficiency causes measles and chicken pox" does not strengthen

E) Cheese harbors bacteria that causes disease certainly does strengthen.

As noted above the OA is D.

David@VeritasPrep wrote:Thanks for posting this one Bharat. It makes me a little nervous about eating cheese! Although I am sure it is not true. Everyone knows you get chicken pox from eating chicken!

We have an EXCEPT question, right? So any answer choice that does strengthen is eliminated.

A) this certainly strengthens since it is a direct link to his conclusion of protecting form childhood disease.

B) This strengthens since it makes more reliable the report that none of the disease-free kids ate cheese.

C) This strengthens very much - since we only know that the kids did not eat cheese at school and this makes that apply to their whole diet.

D) This is the opposite of what we want to see! "Cheese deficiency causes measles and chicken pox" does not strengthen

E) Cheese harbors bacteria that causes disease certainly does strengthen.

As noted above the OA is D.

Thanks David!

I am just not reading the statements well. Its probably because I anticipate running against time, that I end up skimming through.

But at least now I know where to focus a bit more!