Newspaper article: People who take vitamin C supplements tend to be healthier than average. This was shown by a stud...

Mehran on September 28, 2017

Hi @JayDee8732, thanks for your post.

This is a Weaken question. First, let's examine the stimulus.

The newspaper article presents an argument, the conclusion of which is "People who take vitamin C supplements tend to be healthier than average." The premise offered in support of this conclusion refers to a study that links high doses of vitamin C to significantly lower-than-average risk of heart disease.

Great. See how you have a premise about one aspect of health (risk of heart disease) but a conclusion about overall health? That's a classic LSAT trick--and a weak argument.

Answer choice (D) expresses this problem: if it is true that high doses of vitamin C tend to reduce one's resistance to certain common infectious diseases, then the people consuming high doses of vitamin C may have healthier hearts (per the premise in the stimulus) but be more prone to, e.g., the flu, and thus NOT be healthier than average (weakening the conclusion).

Hope this helps. Please let us know if you have any additional questions.