Logical reasoning PrepTest 112 · Section 4 · Question 20

Question prompt

Consumer advocate: The introduction 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

Strengthen Questions

Stimulus Summary

Principle - Introduce new drug → Understand social impact
New antihistamine - ~Understand social impact
Therefore - Pace of bringing new drugs out should be slowed down

Answer Anticipation

One way to approach questions based on flawed logic (including Strengthen questions) is to look at the premises to see what conclusion would be validly supported, and then compare it to the actual conclusion.
Here, the Advocate starts with a general principle - if a new drug is to be introduced to the market, it’s social impact should be understood. Another way to state this (the contrapositive)? If the social impact of a drug isn’t understood, then it shouldn’t be introduced to the market.
From this general principle, it starts to discuss a specific case. A new antihistamine’s social impact isn’t understood. According to the principle, that means it shouldn’t be introduced to the marketplace - the valid conclusion that the premises allow.
The actual conclusion? That the general pace of bringing new drugs to the marketplace should be reduced. That’s taking premises that allow a conclusion about a single drug to be drawn and, instead, generalizing to the overall new drug marketplace.
As such, any answer that makes the new antihistamine representative of all new drugs as far as how well its social impact is understood will serve to strengthen this argument.

Answer choices

  1. A
    The social impact of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A matches the stem
    The social impact of the newly marketed antihistamine isn’t particularly well understood. If it’s much better understood than most new drugs being tested, then those drugs, too, don’t have their social impact well understood, and the principle raised by the Advocate suggests they shouldn’t be released yet - in other words, the pace of release should be slowed down. This answer is interesting in that it brings up a difference between the new antihistamine and the other drugs, but it does so in a way that makes them similar in a key way (it’s better understood, so they’re all not well understood).
  2. B
    The social impact of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    The conclusion is that there should be a “general” reduction in the pace of new drug releases, so this answer about the social impact of “some” new drugs being poorly understood is too weak to affect it. It also doesn’t discuss the antihistamine at all, so it’s ignoring the logic of the argument itself.
  3. C
    The economic success of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    The economic success of new drugs is out of scope of whether they should be released since the premise of the argument considers only the social impact.
  4. D
    The new antihistamine is Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    First, there’s no indication that chemical similarity is relevant to social impact. Second, this answer is about “some” new drugs, and the conclusion is about a “general” reduction in release, making this answer too weak to affect the conclusion.
  5. E
    The new antihistamine should Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    Tempting answer! This one does seem to make the new antihistamine representative of most new drugs. However, it actually negates the relationship of the stimulus. There, the argument assumes that if the new antihistamine shouldn’t be on the market, then most new drugs shouldn’t, yet, either. This answer states that if the new antihistamine should be on the market, then most new drugs should be. Close, but no cigar.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A Credited 48%
  2. B 28%
  3. C 6%
  4. D 14%
  5. E 5%

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