Monroe, despite his generally poor appetite thoroughly enjoyed the three meals he ate at the Tip–Top Restaurant, but,...

shunhe on July 20, 2020

Hi @Anna2020,

Thanks for the question! So let’s take a look at the stimulus here first. We’re told that Monroe, who has a poor appetite, enjoyed the three meals he ate at this restaurant but got sick after each time. What did he eat?

1. XL sausage pizza with a side order of hot peppers
2. All you can eat fried shrimp and hot peppers
3. Two giant meatball sandwiches with hot peppers

Monroe concludes that the hot peppers are why he got sick, since those were the only food that all three meals had in common.

Now we’re asked for a flaw in the reasoning. And an obvious flaw should be that there might be other considerations other than the hot peppers that Monroe isn’t thinking about. So an answer choice that provides such an alternative explanation would help expose this flaw in his reasoning .

Now take a look at (E), which tells us that Monroe overlooks the fact that Monroe ate what was, for him, an unusually large quantity of food each meal. And this answer choice doesn’t actually propose new information. Look over the information in the stimulus again. We’re told that Monroe has a generally poor appetite in the first sentence. But he eats, not just a sausage pizza, but an XL sausage pizza; an all you can eat offering; and not one sandwich, or even two sandwiches, but two giant sandwiches. These words aren’t just being thrown in the stimulus for no reason by the text takers to make you hungry; they’re to emphasize that Monroe is eating A LOT of food, and it’s not normal for him to be doing so. So (E) is supported by the stimulus and exposes a flaw, so it’s the correct answer.

(B), on the other hand, is wrong again because although you could say that Monroe posits a causal relationship, it’s not true that he doesn’t ascertain “that the presumed cause preceded the presumed effect.” That would mean that he had switched up cause and effect. But that’s not the case here, because that would suggest that the illness caused the hot peppers, which is just obviously wrong. So Monroe did actually ascertain that the presumed cause (the hot peppers) preceded the presumed effect (the illness) because honestly, that’s common sense, so (B) isn’t right.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.