Question 114·Hard·Rhetorical Synthesis
While preparing a presentation, a student has compiled the following notes:
• A 2022 meta-analysis combined data from 55 long-term diet studies examining gut health.
• Participants who consumed at least 30 grams of dietary fiber per day showed a 25% increase in gut microbiome species richness compared with those who consumed fewer than 15 grams.
• Higher microbial diversity was correlated with a 21% average reduction in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) symptoms.
• Two supplements—prebiotic inulin and resistant starch—produced diversity gains comparable to the high-fiber diets.
• Researchers concluded that whole-food fiber remained the most reliable way to sustain a diverse microbiome over time.
The student wants to explain why the researchers recommend eating more dietary fiber to promote gut health. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
For rhetorical synthesis questions like this, first restate the task in your own words (what exactly is the sentence supposed to explain or do?). Then quickly scan the notes and highlight the 1–3 bullets that most directly support that purpose, especially any clear cause-and-effect relationships or numerical results. Eliminate any choices that contradict those key notes, introduce claims not supported by the notes, or shift the focus away from the stated goal. Finally, pick the option that accurately combines the relevant points into a concise, logically connected statement that directly addresses the question’s purpose.
Hints
Focus on the goal of the sentence
Ask yourself: which choice actually explains why researchers recommend eating more dietary fiber for gut health, instead of just stating unrelated facts?
Find the most relevant bullets
Look back at the notes and find the bullets that directly connect fiber intake levels with changes in the gut microbiome and IBD symptoms. Those are the ideas your answer should use.
Watch for contradictions
Check whether any option claims that fiber does not matter, that there is no clear relationship, or that people should rely mostly on supplements. Compare these claims carefully to what the notes actually say.
Look for cause-and-effect
The best answer should show a clear cause-and-effect chain from increasing fiber intake to improving gut health outcomes, using specific information from the notes.
Step-by-step Explanation
Identify the task in the question
The question asks which sentence best explains why the researchers recommend eating more dietary fiber to promote gut health.
So the correct choice must:
- Focus on dietary fiber (not mainly supplements or something else), and
- Use information that shows how fiber helps gut health (cause-and-effect).
Pull out the most relevant notes
From the bullet points, the notes most clearly connecting fiber to gut health are:
- Eating at least 30 grams of fiber per day versus fewer than 15 grams led to a 25% increase in gut microbiome species richness.
- Higher microbial diversity was correlated with a 21% reduction in IBD symptoms.
- Researchers concluded that whole-food fiber is the most reliable way to sustain a diverse microbiome.
Together, these show: more fiber → more microbial diversity → fewer IBD symptoms → reason to recommend more fiber.
Eliminate choices that contradict or ignore the key points
Check each option against the notes and the task:
- One option focuses on supplements as the main recommendation, but the notes say whole-food fiber is the most reliable.
- Another says people eating less than 15 grams still had high diversity and that fiber does not strongly influence gut health, which is the opposite of the notes.
- Another claims no clear relationship among fiber, microbial diversity, and IBD symptoms, but the notes explicitly show a relationship.
All these options either contradict the notes or fail to explain why more fiber is recommended.
Confirm the choice that uses the key data correctly
The remaining option clearly states that increasing fiber intake to at least 30 grams led to a 25% boost in microbiome diversity, and that this change was linked to a 21% drop in IBD symptoms. This directly uses the key data to explain why researchers would recommend eating more fiber to promote gut health.
Therefore, the correct answer is: “The meta-analysis found that increasing daily fiber intake to at least 30 grams boosted gut microbiome diversity by 25%, a change linked to a 21% drop in IBD symptoms.”