The fact that tobacco smoke inhaled by smokers harms the smokers does not prove that the much smaller amount of tobac...

Naz on July 16, 2015

Alright so let's break down this argument:

We are saying that there is no evidence that just because tobacco smoke inhaled by smokers harms the smokers does not mean that much smaller amount of tobacco smoke inhaled by nonsmokers who share living space with smokers harms the nonsmokers to some degree. As an example to support this, we are told that vitamin A, like many substances, is toxic in large quantities, but beneficial in small quantities.

So, the argument follows that just because something is bad in large quantities doesn't mean that it is bad in small quantities as well; and then we are given an example to show this.

Answer choice (E) follows the same reasoning.

We have something is bad in large quantities: watching television for half of every day would be a waste of time, but that doesn't mean that this thing in small quantities is necessarily bad: watching television briefly every day is not necessarily a small waste of time; and then we are given an example to show this: it is a waste to sleep half of every day, but some sleep every day is a good thing.

So, as you can see, answer choice (E) is correct because it follows the same pattern of reasoning as the argument.

If you have any specific questions on any of the other answer choices, please feel free to clarify.

Hope that clears things up! Please let us know if you have any other questions.

trisharma on October 21, 2018

Is C wrong just because it isn't specifically drawing a conclusion about a "small" amount of fertilizer?

Emil-Kunkin on August 12 at 08:20PM

C is wrong because it includes a normative statement that was not present in the argument. The argument made no claims about what should be done.