Thanks for the question! So we’re trying to find out what the main conclusion of this argument is. Let’s try to break this down. We start off with a question: would it be right for the government to abandon efforts to determine at what levels to allow toxic substances in our food supply? To simplify: is it ok for the government to stop figuring out toxic substance levels in food?
Then, we’re told that it would only be right (for the government to stop) if the acceptable level of toxic substances was 0. And then in the next few sentences, we’re basically told that’s impossible. First of all, virtually all foods just naturally have toxic substances in nontoxic quantities. And second, we can’t be sure that there’s a “0” level, we can only tell that we can’t detect it.
So what’s the whole point of all of this? To sum it up: it’s only be ok for the government to stop figuring out these toxic levels if the level could be 0. But the level can never be 0, and even if it could, we’d never know. So what’s the takeaway? That it’s not ok for the government to stop figuring out the toxic levels; in other words, that the government should continue determining toxic levels for substances! That’s the main conclusion, even though not explicitly stated. It’s implicit in everything above, and that’s what (A) says.
Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.
AkosuaJune 28, 2024
However , the answer explanation says that the correct choice is implied. My question is why is an implication okay as the correct answer and not what the passage actually say verbatim? The examples given in the main point video are more straightforward and I am finding that in more main point question, the answer is more implied than not. Is there a strategy for this? How do we overcome this?
Emil-KunkinJune 29, 2024
It's not common but it will occasionally be the case on main point questions where the main point is indeed something that is heavily implied by the passage but never explicitly stated.
When this happens the point will be clearly and directly implied, as is the case here. The author starts by posing a question, and then saying the answer can only be yes if certain conditions are met. And then they emphatically tell us the conditions are not met. Therefore, we can conclude from this the answer to the question was no; which is reflected in A.
