PrepTest 144

Incorrect. First, there's no indication that anyone is prescribing "unnecessary" drugs—just that prescription decisions are potentially influenced by gifts. Even if we accept that at least some physicians are influenced by these gifts (which the stimulus doesn't establish), they might be influenced to prescribe a certain brand of a necessary drug, not a wholly unnecessary drug.

Incorrect. This answer goes way beyond the scope of the stimulus in talking about regulations (never discussed) and what most physicians believe should be done (there's no such recommendation suggested in the stimulus).

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Must Be True

Stimulus Summary:
Survey:

Physicians-most-Believe drug company gifts don't affect their prescription decisions

Physicians-most-Believe drug company gifts do affect the prescription decisions of most other physicians

Answer Anticipation:
The stimulus here has a lot of most statements getting thrown around, and when that happens in a Must be True question, there's a good chance that we'll have to use our quantifier skills to make an inference.

Here, the two results of the survey discuss what "most" physicians believe. Since we have two most statements that share a first term, there must be some overlap between them—if both statements represent just 51% of the physicians surveyed, then some physicians fall into both groups.

So we can infer from these statements that some physicians believe both that drug company gifts don't influence their prescription decisions but that most other physicians are influenced by these decisions. Let's look for an answer stating this.

Answer Explanation:
This answer doesn't match our anticipation, but it does match in one key way—it's very weak in talking about only "[s]ome" physicians. Since our premises are weaker (most statements, which result in some statements when inferences are made), this is a reason to dig deeper into this answer. And to establish this answer, we need to show that some of the physicians are wrong about something. That's actually easy enough—most believe over 50% are influenced by these gifts, but most believe they aren't, so someone has to be wrong there. If over 50% are right in stating that they aren't influenced by gifts, then those who state that most other physicians are so influenced are wrong. If over 50% are right that the majority of other physicians are influenced by gifts, then some of that majority who believe they aren't are wrong. Someone has to be wrong about something.

Key Takeaway:
For quantifier-based Must Be True questions, dig into weaker answers choices (some statements) even if they don't match your anticipation. Some statements tend to be correct, so they're worth the extra consideration!

Incorrect. First, there's no discussion of degree of influence, so that aspect of this answer is out of scope. Additionally, the group who admit their prescription decisions are affected by the drug company gifts are only some of the surveyed group, so there's no way to make an inference about that group by combining it with any other statement in the stimulus, all of which are most statements.

Incorrect. There's no premise in the stimulus that's strong enough to support an inference about all of any subset of physicians—especially the group that admits their decisions are influenced by the gifts, as they're never specifically discussed in the stimulus.