Since smoking-related illnesses are a serious health problem in Normark, and since addiction to nicotine prevents many people from quitting...
GMAT Critical Reasoning : (CR) Questions
Since smoking-related illnesses are a serious health problem in Normark, and since addiction to nicotine prevents many people from quitting smoking, the government of Normark plans to reduce the maximum allowable quantity of nicotine per cigarette by half over the next five years. However, reducing the quantity of nicotine per cigarette will probably cause people addicted to nicotine to smoke more cigarettes. Therefore implementing this plan is unlikely to reduce the incidence of smoking related illnesses.
Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the argument about the consequences of implementing the Normarkian government's plan.
Passage Analysis:
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| Since smoking-related illnesses are a serious health problem in Normark, and since addiction to nicotine prevents many people from quitting smoking, the government of Normark plans to reduce the maximum allowable quantity of nicotine per cigarette by half over the next five years. |
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| However, reducing the quantity of nicotine per cigarette will probably cause people addicted to nicotine to smoke more cigarettes. |
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| Therefore implementing this plan is unlikely to reduce the incidence of smoking related illnesses. |
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Argument Flow:
We start with context about Normark's smoking problem and the government's solution, then the author challenges this plan by predicting people will smoke more cigarettes, and finally concludes the plan won't work
Main Conclusion:
Implementing Normark's plan to reduce nicotine in cigarettes is unlikely to reduce smoking-related illnesses
Logical Structure:
The argument uses a cause-and-effect chain: lower nicotine per cigarette → people smoke more cigarettes → plan fails to reduce health problems. The author takes the government's well-intentioned plan and shows why it might backfire
Prethinking:
Question type:
Strengthen - We need to find information that makes the conclusion more believable. The conclusion is that reducing nicotine per cigarette won't reduce smoking-related illnesses because people will smoke more cigarettes.
Precision of Claims
The key claim is about activity/quantity - that people will smoke MORE cigarettes when nicotine content is reduced, and this increased smoking will prevent any reduction in smoking-related illnesses. We need to be precise about what causes these illnesses and how smoking behavior changes.
Strategy
We need to strengthen the link between 'people smoking more cigarettes' and 'no reduction in smoking-related illnesses.' The argument assumes that smoking more cigarettes (even with less nicotine each) will still cause the same or more health problems. We should look for evidence that supports this chain of reasoning.
This tells us that over half of non-smoking adults used to smoke. This doesn't help strengthen the argument about what will happen when current smokers face reduced nicotine cigarettes. Past smoking behavior of people who already quit doesn't tell us anything about how current addicted smokers will respond to the government's plan.
This says most cigarettes currently contain less than the maximum nicotine allowed. This actually weakens the argument because if cigarettes already have less nicotine than the legal limit, then reducing the legal limit might not change actual nicotine content much. This makes it less likely that people would need to smoke significantly more cigarettes.
This mentions that nicotine alternatives like gum and patches are now available in Normark. This doesn't strengthen the argument - in fact, it might weaken it because if people have other ways to get nicotine, they might not need to smoke more cigarettes when nicotine content is reduced. They could use these alternatives instead.
This states that many smokers already spend a large portion of their income on cigarettes. While this tells us smoking is expensive for people, it doesn't directly connect to whether the nicotine reduction plan will fail to reduce smoking-related illnesses. Cost constraints might even prevent people from smoking significantly more cigarettes.
This directly strengthens the argument by establishing that tar, not nicotine, is the main cause of smoking-related illnesses. This is crucial because if people smoke more cigarettes due to reduced nicotine content, they'll be exposed to more tar. Since tar causes the health problems, more cigarettes means more health risks, making it very unlikely that the government's plan will reduce smoking-related illnesses. This perfectly supports the conclusion that the plan won't work.