Logical reasoning PrepTest 105 · Section 2 · Question 2

Question prompt

A director of the Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: A

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Argument or Facts

Argument

Valid or Flawed

Flawed

Question Type

Weaken Questions

Stimulus Summary

Vaccines are given only once, while other drugs are given multiple times, so vaccines are less profitable to market, and thus the government should subsidize them.

Answer Anticipation

The argument here has an intermediate conclusion and a main point, but the question stem specifically asks us about the concern on marketing the vaccines - namely, that they’re less profitable. That’s the intermediate conclusion, so while we’d normally look for gaps assumptions leading to both conclusions, here we can focus solely on the intermediate! With that noted, we can see that the claim is that vaccines are less profitable. Why is that the case? Because other pharmaceuticals are given to patients multiple times, but vaccines are given only once. Does that ensure that they’re not as profitable? Not at all! Anything that suggests a single-dose vaccine could be more profitable than a multi-dose pharmaceutical would weaken this argument. Maybe the vaccines cost next to nothing to make but sell for quite a bit, whereas the other pharmaceuticals are expensive and sell for less. Or maybe most drugs are used to treat only a small subset of the population, whereas vaccines are provided to nearly everyone. Let’s find something like this in the answer choices.

Answer choices

  1. A
    Vaccines are administered to Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A matches the stem
    This answer brings up one way that the vaccines might be profitable despite being sold just once to each patient/customer. If everyone gets one, then the volume might make up for the lack of repeat customers, so this answer weakens the concern of the director.
  2. B
    Many of the diseases Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    If anything, this suggests that the vaccines are replacing pharmaceuticals that would be sold multiple times, justifying the fear that vaccines will cut into profits.
  3. C
    Pharmaceutical companies occasionally market Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Without knowing anything about these other products, it’s impossible to know if they would be expected to be more or less profitable than vaccines.
  4. D
    Pharmaceutical companies other than Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    If anything, competition in the vaccine space would cause lower profits as there’s more competition, lining up with the director’s argument.
  5. E
    The cost of administering Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    While this answer removes a cost from vaccines, it doesn’t do so in a way that calls into question the concern that they’d be less profitable than other pharmaceuticals. After all, the pharmaceutical company doesn’t pay the cost to have people take their pills, either!

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A Credited 82%
  2. B 5%
  3. C 3%
  4. D 1%
  5. E 10%

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