Choose the statement that is best supported by the information given in the…
2024
Choose the statement that is best supported by the information given in the question passage.
Walk into any supermarket or pharmacy and you will find several shelves of products designed to protect adults and children from the sun. Additionally, a host of public health campaigns have been created, including National Skin Cancer Awareness Month, that warn us about the sun's damaging UV rays and provide guidelines about protecting ourselves. While warnings about the sun's dangers are frequent, a recent survey found that fewer than half of all adults adequately protect themselves from the sun.
This paragraph best supports the statement that
- A.
children are better protected from the sun's dangerous rays than adults
- B.
sales of sun protection products are at an all-time high.
- C.
adults are not heeding the warnings about the dangers of sun exposure seriously enough.
- D.
more adults have skin cancer now than ever before
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
Concept: In a "best supported statement" reading-comprehension question, the correct choice must follow directly from facts actually stated in the passage — it cannot add outside comparisons, statistics, or trends the passage never mentions. A claim that requires assuming unstated data is not supported, however plausible it sounds.
Application: The passage states two facts: warnings about the sun's dangers are described as frequent, and a recent survey found that fewer than half of all adults protect themselves adequately from the sun. Putting these together directly supports the idea that many adults are not taking the frequent warnings seriously enough to act on them — this is the only claim that follows straight from what the passage says, without adding anything beyond it.
Contrast with the other statements:
the claim that children are better protected than adults would need a direct comparison between the two groups' protection levels, but the passage only mentions that products exist for both — it never compares them.
the claim about sales being at an all-time high would need historical sales data, but the passage only notes that products are stocked on shelves, not how much is sold or how that compares to the past.
the claim about more adults having skin cancer than ever before needs cancer-rate statistics over time, but the passage discusses only warnings and awareness campaigns, never cancer incidence data.
Only the statement that adults are not heeding the sun-danger warnings seriously enough is drawn directly from facts explicitly stated in the passage, making it the best-supported conclusion.