Fat intake - cancer

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Fat intake - cancer

by shashi_gmat » Sun May 24, 2009 12:10 pm
The higher the average fat intake among the residents of a country, the higher the incidence of cancer in that country; the lower the average fat intake, the lower the incidence of cancer. So individuals who want to reduce their risk of cancer should reduce their fat intake.
Which one of the following, if true, most weaken the argument?
(A) The differences in average fat intake between countries are often due to the varying makeup of traditional diets.
(B) The countries with a high average fat intake tend to be among the wealthiest in the world.
(C) Cancer is a prominent cause of death in countries with a low average fat intake.
(D) The countries with high average fat intake are also the countries with highest levels of environmental pollution.
(E) An individual resident of a country whose population has a high average fat intake may have a diet with a low fat intake.

I think its "C". it directly hits the low fat intake countries for cancer.
Anyone... please comment.
Is it correct??????
Shashi
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Re: Fat intake - cancer

by vinaynp » Sun May 24, 2009 3:06 pm
shashi_gmat wrote:The higher the average fat intake among the residents of a country, the higher the incidence of cancer in that country; the lower the average fat intake, the lower the incidence of cancer. So individuals who want to reduce their risk of cancer should reduce their fat intake.
Which one of the following, if true, most weaken the argument?
(A) The differences in average fat intake between countries are often due to the varying makeup of traditional diets.
(B) The countries with a high average fat intake tend to be among the wealthiest in the world.
(C) Cancer is a prominent cause of D€@th in countries with a low average fat intake.
(D) The countries with high average fat intake are also the countries with highest levels of environmental pollution.
(E) An individual resident of a country whose population has a high average fat intake may have a diet with a low fat intake.

I think its "C". it directly hits the low fat intake countries for cancer.
Anyone... please comment.
Is it correct??????
This problem is related to the classic theory "Correlation does not imply causation".

Fat Intake is correlated to Incidence of Cancer.
The argument then mentions that Fat Intake is the cause of Cancer. This is a flawed argument.

The cause of Cancer can be anything apart from Fat Intake. Hence D) comes the closest.

P.S: This is a LSAT problem which can bring an outside factor. However, GMAT problems would not bring an outside factor.

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by vcgmat » Sun May 24, 2009 3:08 pm
IMO, (C)

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by caprion » Wed May 27, 2009 12:58 am
IMO D.

(C) Cancer is a prominent cause of D€@th in countries with a low average fat intake.
C states that cancer is prominent cause of death. But does not means that fat intake does not leads to higher incidence of Cancer.


D i think is the closest.

whats the OA ?

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by james33 » Sun May 15, 2016 7:43 pm
Guys can anyone give a decent reason why D is not right.

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by atrayee345 » Wed Dec 19, 2018 3:22 am
The given argument tries to establish a direct relation between fat intake and the incidences of cancer and also describes fat intake the sole reason of cancer. If we can introduce some other cause of cancer that is high in countries having high cancer incidences, we can definitely weaken the argument. Choice D best fits for this purpose. Hence, D is the answer.