Ensuring that children consume less sugar is among the most effective ways to curb childhood obesity. Recently, with this goal in mind, school officials have begun to replace high calorie sugary drinks in school vending machines with bottled water, unsweetened fruit juices, and sugar free sodas. Since students spend so much time in school, officials reason that removing access to sugary drinks during school hours will cause a dramatic reduction in the intake of sugar.

Which of the following, if true, most undermines the school officials’ plan?
a) Unsweetened fruit juices contain more sugar than does bottled water.
b) Many students have access to sugary drinks both before and after school.
c) Sugar free sodas contain artificial sweeteners that some medical officials link to headaches and other health concerns.
d) Sugary snack foods comprise the majority of sales in school vending machines.
e) The average school-aged child consumes two twenty-ounce sugary drinks every day.

The correct answer is (d).

I was able to get to the correct answer, but took around 3 minutes. I was confused b/w choices (b) & (d).

My thought process was as follows:

Conclusion - Removing access to sugary drinks will cause a large reduction in sugar intake.

(b) - Alternate path to sugar drinks - acts as a counter premise.
(d) - Alternate path to sugar drinks - acts as a counter premise.

I thought (d) was more within scope, since it is an alternate path to sugar within the sugar. I am not quite sure if
this logic indeed is correct. Also any other techniques for handling such types of questions.

thanks a lot.

Sorry for the typo:

(d) more within scope, since it is an alternate path to sugar within the school.

The conclusion states that the school expects to reduce *dramatically* the amount of sugar children consume specifically because the students will no longer be able to get such sugary drinks at school. You have to make sure that you directly address that conclusion.

If, as a result of no longer having access to sugary drinks at school, sugar intake will go down dramatically, the author must be assuming that the students currently do consume a lot of those sugary drinks at school. If they are not actually consuming many sugary drinks at school, then the plan won't work very well.

D establishes the idea that students get most of their in-school sugar from snack food. If that's the case, then they are NOT getting the majority of their in-school sugar from sugary drinks, so swapping out sugary drinks for more healthy drinks is not likely to have a dramatic effect.

B, on the other hand, addresses a situation outside of the conclusion's scope: what students might drink at home or at other places besides school. The school officials' plan does not address other places where students might consume sugary drinks (or sugar in any form) - it only addresses in-school consumption.