SAT Reading & Writing · Cross-Text Connections
**Text 1** Nutrition researchers studying large populations have found that people who report eating diets high in fiber tend to have…
**Text 1**
Nutrition researchers studying large populations have found that people who report eating diets high in fiber tend to have lower rates of certain digestive diseases compared to people who report low-fiber diets.
**Text 2**
Researchers examining this same body of research note that people who choose high-fiber diets often also exercise more, smoke less, and have higher incomes on average, making it difficult to isolate fiber's independent contribution to the observed health differences from these other co-occurring habits and circumstances.
Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to a claim that the correlation in Text 1 proves fiber alone causes the lower disease rates?
Nutrition researchers studying large populations have found that people who report eating diets high in fiber tend to have lower rates of certain digestive diseases compared to people who report low-fiber diets.
**Text 2**
Researchers examining this same body of research note that people who choose high-fiber diets often also exercise more, smoke less, and have higher incomes on average, making it difficult to isolate fiber's independent contribution to the observed health differences from these other co-occurring habits and circumstances.
Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to a claim that the correlation in Text 1 proves fiber alone causes the lower disease rates?
Answer and explanation
Answer: B: By questioning that claim, since other habits and circumstances associated with high-fiber diets make it difficult to isolate fiber's own independent contribution.
Text 2's specific concern is that other correlated factors, exercise, smoking, income, make it hard to attribute the observed difference to fiber alone, which directly challenges a claim that fiber alone is responsible. B captures that precise, evidence-based pushback. A misstates Text 2, which raises doubt instead of confirming sole causation. C overstates Text 2 into a denial of any relationship, which it doesn't make. D invents an unrelated claim about income that Text 2 doesn't state.
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