Medical education - CR

[kiran99x]

MGMAT qn bank :

Medical education in the United States has focused almost exclusively on curative medicine, while preventive care has been given scant attention. This is misguided. Medical schools should invest as much time in teaching their students how to prevent illness as in teaching them how to cure it.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument above?


A.Many contagious diseases can be prevented with vaccines.


B.In 1988, for every three cents the United States spent on prevention, it spent 97 cents on curative treatment.

C.The number of students enrolled in medical school is the highest it has ever been.

D.More people die each year from disease than from accidental causes.

E.As the population grows, the number of doctors in certain specialties has not been keeping pace.

The OA is A. I chose B. The OA sounds more like an assumption answer than a strengthen answer.
If the OA is correct and I am almost sure it is, I am worried about the way I got this anwer wrong :(
Can someone please explain?

[patelbhavesh_09]

MGMAT qn bank :

Medical education in the United States has focused almost exclusively on curative medicine, while preventive care has been given scant attention. This is misguided. Medical schools should invest as much time in teaching their students how to prevent illness as in teaching them how to cure it.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument above?


A.Many contagious diseases can be prevented with vaccines.


B.In 1988, for every three cents the United States spent on prevention, it spent 97 cents on curative treatment.

C.The number of students enrolled in medical school is the highest it has ever been.

D.More people die each year from disease than from accidental causes.

E.As the population grows, the number of doctors in certain specialties has not been keeping pace.

The OA is A. I chose B. The OA sounds more like an assumption answer than a strengthen answer.
If the OA is correct and I am almost sure it is, I am worried about the way I got this anwer wrong :(
Can someone please explain?

Hi Kiran,

option B is paraphrase of premise only. "Medical education in the United States has focused almost exclusively on curative medicine". = "In 1988, for every three cents the United States spent on prevention, it spent 97 cents on curative treatment."

To strengthen the argument we have to --1) identify conclusion
2) Look for weekness in argument : look for an answer that eliminates the weakness.
and so many other points. but here this 2 points are enough. (I am solving it using Powerscore CR bible method).

conclusion : Medical schools should invest as much time in teaching their students how to prevent illness as in teaching them how to cure it
weekness : Is it possible to prevent diseases?

Option "A" doing exactly this. It closes gap. So it is the best answer choice. (Read chapter 8 of Powerscore CR for more information).

-Bhavesh

[shrikantbhaiya]

Nicely explained bhavesh.

I thought on the same line. I think power score process helps a lot at least in strengthen and weaken problems.

[danielpatinkin]

MGMAT qn bank :

Medical education in the United States has focused almost exclusively on curative medicine, while preventive care has been given scant attention. This is misguided. Medical schools should invest as much time in teaching their students how to prevent illness as in teaching them how to cure it.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument above?


A.Many contagious diseases can be prevented with vaccines.


B.In 1988, for every three cents the United States spent on prevention, it spent 97 cents on curative treatment.

C.The number of students enrolled in medical school is the highest it has ever been.

D.More people die each year from disease than from accidental causes.

E.As the population grows, the number of doctors in certain specialties has not been keeping pace.

The OA is A. I chose B. The OA sounds more like an assumption answer than a strengthen answer.
If the OA is correct and I am almost sure it is, I am worried about the way I got this anwer wrong :(
Can someone please explain?

Hi Kiran,

option B is paraphrase of premise only. "Medical education in the United States has focused almost exclusively on curative medicine". = "In 1988, for every three cents the United States spent on prevention, it spent 97 cents on curative treatment."

To strengthen the argument we have to --1) identify conclusion
2) Look for weekness in argument : look for an answer that eliminates the weakness.
and so many other points. but here this 2 points are enough. (I am solving it using Powerscore CR bible method).

conclusion : Medical schools should invest as much time in teaching their students how to prevent illness as in teaching them how to cure it
weekness : Is it possible to prevent diseases?

Option "A" doing exactly this. It closes gap. So it is the best answer choice. (Read chapter 8 of Powerscore CR for more information).

-Bhavesh

Bhavesh,
Nicely done.
Another way to think about strengthen/weaken questions is to consider the assumptions. Essentially, any weakness in an argument is due to an assumption (i.e. an unstated idea on which the argument depends).

In concluding that "Medical schools should invest as much time in teaching their students how to prevent illness as in teaching them how to cure it," this argument is assuming that PREVENTATIVE MEDICINE HAS VALUE.

To STRENGTHEN an argument, we must introduce a supporting premise, which is the same as GIVING VOICE TO OR AFFIRMING AN ASSUMPTION.

Answer choice A, "Many contagious diseases can be prevented with vaccines" affirms the assumption that preventive medicine has value.

The other thing that I recommend you do here is fully understand why the wrong choices are wrong.

- Answer choice A is correct.
- Answer choice B is slightly outside of scope. The argument is about "medical education" not about medical spending.
- Answer choice C is completely irrelevant.
- Answer choice D is outside of scope.
- Answer choice E is outside of scope.

Keep up the good work, guys!

Dan P