Efforts to get the public to exercise regularly, which have emphasized the positive health effects of exercise rather...

Skylar on June 5, 2020

@jingjingxiao11111@gmail.com, happy to help!

(A) "The health risks associated with a sedentary lifestyle are as great as those associated with smoking."

This is incorrect because we are not concerned with the health risks being exactly equal. For example, the risks of a sedentary lifestyle could be less damaging than the risks of smoking, but still equally motivating in promoting healthy behavior. In other words, we are less concerned with the actual health risks and more concerned with the effect of promoting them to the public. Moreover, it is unnecessarily strong to say the risks must be exactly "as great as" each other instead of just comparable to each other. Lastly, the argument is focused on comparing the promotion of health risks to the promotion of benefits, not necessarily on comparing the different health risks to each other. For these reasons, we can negate (A) without making the argument in the passage fall apart, so it is incorrect.

Does that make sense? Please let us know if you have any other questions!