Q2 - Many diet-conscious consumers are excited

[ohthatpatrick]

What does the Question Stem tell us?
ID the Conclusion

Break down the Stimulus:
Conclusion: Consumers will probably be disappointed by new fat substitute's ability to help them lose weight.

Evidence: research shows that people who eat these "fake fat" foods tend to eat as least as many calories as before.

Any prephrase?
Two patterns dominate ID the Conclusion: 1. Conclusion is the first sentence; everything after unpacks it. 2. Conclusion appears as a rebuttal (but/yet/however) after someone else's point of view; evidence again comes after it. We just need an answer choice that means what the 2nd sentence says.

Correct answer:
D

Answer choice analysis:
A) Not said, but closely resembles the last sentence, which was a premise.

B) Tempting! It has the language match of "disappointed", but this says DESTINED to be disappointed, while Conclusion said LIKELY. And … this is about thinking "fake fat" is more NUTRITIOUS, when the Conclusion was about thinking "fake fat" could HELP THEM LOSE WEIGHT.

C) Obesity is never even uttered. This type of trap answer is the "What comes NEXT" trap. Don't think ID the Conclusion wants you to Infer what ELSE the author would believe. It's literally just about pointing to which sentence is the conclusion and then finding a matching answer choice.

D) This is a good match. If you're "likely to be disappointed if you expect X to help you lose weight", then "X is probably not going to help you meet your weight loss goals".

E) "Indistinguishable" is extreme and not said. Also, this points to the background 1st sentence.

Takeaway/Pattern: Take advantage of the low-hanging fruit and formulaic nature of ID the Conclusion. Expect the Conclusion to be FIRST SENTENCE or a BUT / YET / HOWEVER REBUTTAL. Once you find and bracket the conclusion, find the answer choice that most closely matches its MEANING.

#officialexplanation

[ConnorL87]

While I answered this question correctly, upon reviewing the wrong answers, I found myself getting completely caught up on the meaning in answer choice (B). Is saying "most consumers are destined to be disappointed" equivalent to saying "consumers are likely to be disappointed"? Said another way, if something is destined to happen for MOST (100% likely for at least 51 out of 100 people), then isn't that the same as saying it is likely to happen (going to happen for at least 51 out of 100 people)? I'm not seeing how the reason (B) is wrong is because it says "destined", because it's only saying destined for most; it's the same as saying it's likely. How does probability work?

Further more, saying "probably not going to help consumers meet weight loss goals" (from (D), the correct answer) seems like an inference based off of the conclusion. Isn't it assuming that if customers are disappointed in "fake fat" products, they must not meet their weight loss goals? Why couldn't they be disappointed but still meet their goals?

The reason I didn't choose (B) was because it said "nutritious", but I could see how consumers might think that something helping them lose weight is nutritious.

[ohthatpatrick]

I've had that same question about the probability angle.

I don't think it is the same to say
"Batters will probably not get a hit off of Anderson"
as
"Most batters are destined to not get a hit off of Anderson"

Say there are three batters -- if they each only have a 40% chance of getting a hit, then it's true to say of each of these batters that "they probably will not get a hit".

But for most of them (2 out of 3) to get a hit, it would be
4/10 * 4/10 * 6/10 (* 3 different scenarios for which one doesn't get the hit).

96/1000 * 3 = 288 / 1000 = 28.8% chance that most of them get a hit.

An easier way to explain the difference is simply that the first claim is saying that each event is improbable. But a series of improbable events coming true is still POSSIBLE.

So it's making a different claim to introduce the certainty of "it's DESTINED that most of these events don't come true".

Anyway, the much easier way to get rid of (B) is nutritious, which is definitely not found in the explicit conclusion.

Your concern with (D) didn't fully make sense to me. You seemed to think that (D) said "people taking FAKE FAT will probably not meet their weight loss goals".

It just says that "FAKE FAT probably won't help them to meet those goals". They might still meet the goals, just through the help of some other means.

The conclusion is saying "people who think FAKE FAT will be a useful tool for losing weight will probably be disappointed .... to find out that FAKE FAT does not help them to lose weight".