Strengthen Questions - - Question 10

Although nondairy coffee lighteners made with coconut oil contain 2 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon, or 7 times...

ShannonOh22 August 6, 2019

Question!

As someone else asked, how is it that coconut oil-based lighteners "usually contain no cholesterol", yet they still cause the consumer's cholesterol level to rise..? This seems both logically and theoretically impossible. Also - and this may just be my lack of comprehensive medical knowledge - but how in the world does something "RISE to a LOWER level"? Is this a typo in the "manufacturers" section? Wouldn't it be "sink to a lower level" or "cause cholesterol levels to fall"? Heeeelp! :)

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Irina August 6, 2019

@Shannon,

There are plausible explanations, saturated fat is generally known to cause cholesterol levels to rise even though the product itself does not contain any cholesterol. The point here is that we must take the facts in the passage as true as LSAT requires no specialized outside knowledge and trying to rationalize a fact using preexisting knowledge is likely to hurt your LSAT performance rather than help.

As for the "rise to a lower level" phrase, it is used in the context of comparing two products, meaning both products cause cholesterol to rise, but the increase associated with coconut oil is lower than the increase associated with whole milk, thus this description is accurate.

Does that make sense?
Let me know if you have any further questions.

ShannonOh22 August 6, 2019

Ahhh - got it!! Thanks Irina, now it makes a lot more sense!

Ravi August 6, 2019

@ShannonOh22, let us know if you have any other questions!