Q11 - The present goal of the

[haeaznboiyoung]

P: Increasingly the ability to transplant organs such as heart, lungs, livers, and kidneys allow us to live longer

P: But we can never achieve brain transplants

C: With organ transplants, those with degenerative brain disorders will form an ever-increasing proportion of the population

My understanding of this argument was, brain transplants can never be achieved... yet it concludes that those with brain disorders will become a larger proportion of the population. I originally had the assumption of "those with degen brain disorders cannot die" or "medicine has allowed those with brain degen orders to live without transplants" but I'm sure I'm interpreting this argument wrong somewhere...

I just don't see how C would work, saying that degen brain disorders will not be curable without brain transplants, but the argument clearly says that brain transplants can never be achieved...

Please help! Thanks!

[aileenann]

Hi there. I'll be glad to help you with this one

Yeah, so I think you are interpreting the conclusion a little askew. It is not saying that we ultimately will be able to do brain transplants - rather it's saying that since we'll stop dying of other things that will mean that more and more of us will die of brain problems because we'll already have been cured of our other problems.

This is actually analogous to the real world situation that over time fewer and fewer people are dying of, say, pneumonia. This means that as the % who die of pneumonia goes down, more people go on to survive pneumonia and instead die of other things, say brain disease (sorry to be morbid, but it's a handy real life example).

(C) is just saying that there will be diseases that will last even as our science gets better. We need this because imagine the opposite. If it turned out we could cure every brain disease without an impossible brain transplant, then people would stop dying of brain diseases as well. But the author is clearly saying we will continue dying of brain diseases, which means the author is clearly saying that brain diseases are not going to go away any time soon.

Does this make sense?

[haeaznboiyoung]

Ah I see now, that definitely clears it up. Thank you!

[mrudula_2005]

Okay, so I picked (D) here and I'm just going through run through my reasoning as to why I was mistaken.

Let's negate (D): Degenerative brain disorders do not account for a very small proportion of deaths in the population at large.

I guess I assumed that this negation would mean that the brain disorders accounted for a large proportion of deaths (1st question: that is unwarranted, right? it could instead just account for a 'small' instead of 'very small' proportion of deaths?)

and then from there I thought, if they account for such a large proportion of deaths, then that means that a lot of these people are dying so how will they form an ever-increasing proportion of the population? (2nd question: that is unwarranted as well, right? because just because they account for a large proportion of deaths in the population at large, does not mean that most or even many of them die...maybe the population experiences very few deaths and those few deaths happen to come from degenerative brain disorders, leaving behind enough alive people with degenerative brain disorders to constitute an ever-increasing proportion of the population)

basically, the reason I guess I was tempted by (D) was because I saw it as matching my prephrased assumption that "not every person afflicted with degenerative brain disorders dies immediately" - would that have been valid without the word "immediately" ?

thanks!

[tianfeng102]

Okay, so I picked (D) here and I'm just going through run through my reasoning as to why I was mistaken.

Let's negate (D): Degenerative brain disorders do not account for a very small proportion of deaths in the population at large.

I guess I assumed that this negation would mean that the brain disorders accounted for a large proportion of deaths (1st question: that is unwarranted, right? it could instead just account for a 'small' instead of 'very small' proportion of deaths?)

and then from there I thought, if they account for such a large proportion of deaths, then that means that a lot of these people are dying so how will they form an ever-increasing proportion of the population? (2nd question: that is unwarranted as well, right? because just because they account for a large proportion of deaths in the population at large, does not mean that most or even many of them die...maybe the population experiences very few deaths and those few deaths happen to come from degenerative brain disorders, leaving behind enough alive people with degenerative brain disorders to constitute an ever-increasing proportion of the population)

basically, the reason I guess I was tempted by (D) was because I saw it as matching my prephrased assumption that "not every person afflicted with degenerative brain disorders dies immediately" - would that have been valid without the word "immediately" ?

thanks!

A quick way to eliminate D is that it only describes what is happening now instead of telling us what will happen in the future. The conclusion we are trying to weaken is a prediction, not an assessment of current status.

[vcoats2]

For this one, I interpreted the premises and conclusion correctly but still struggle with answer choice C. The stimulus clearly states that a brain transplant would not be possible. While I know the stimulus discusses the benefits of other transplants, no information given where the reader can reasonably infer that a BRAIN transplant would be hypothetically effective.

Answer choice C says that there are diseases that aren't curable without a brain transplant, which is a procedure that is not only impossible, but that we don't even know the potential benefits of. I don't see how it's reasonable to jump to the conclusion that a brain transplant is a plausible solution to a brain disorder; if anything, the opposite seems to be true.

I had a hard time with this one. If anyone could address this, I would be really appreciative.

[raziel]

Remember that once you have found a candidate for the solution, you can negate the answer choice to see if the conclusion requires its assumption.

Negating (C): There are degenerative brain disorders that WILL be curable without brain transplants. If brain transplants are not needed, and brain disorders will be curable, then the conclusion is not proven.

The argument requires assuming (C) because like you said, if brain transplants are not possible, then the disorders will not curable. We have to assume that brain disorders will not be curable in any in order to reach the conclusion.

[Abeckham13]

I did the problem a bit differently and still got the right answer.

The conclusion states a causal relationship.

As organ transplants allow people to live longer, those with degenerative brain disorders will form an ever increasing proportion of the population. Upon skimming through the answers, I felt that C was the best answer after negating it since it said that the cause occurs but the effect does not.

Hope this helps.

[griswald]

I'm not understanding the conclusion. Can someone please help?

If people will be dying more from degenerative brain disorders instead of other causes (due to better science in transplanting other organs except the brain), then how can the population exhibit a higher proportion of people with brain disorders? These are the people who are dying!

For example, if we have 100 people in a city, and if, normally, 33% who would die from liver failure, 33% would die from heart failure, and the remaining 33% would die from brain failure, BUT we are able to save the liver and heart failure patients through transplants, then clearly 66 people in the city will be healthy and as the remaining 33 succumb to a degenerative brain disease, the proportion of people suffering from this in the entire population will be decreasing.

[rinagoldfield]

Haeaznboiyoung’s argument core is spot-on. Here it is:

P: Increasingly the ability to transplant organs such as heart, lungs, livers, and kidneys allow us to live longer

P: But we can never achieve brain transplants

C: With organ transplants, those with degenerative brain disorders will form an ever-increasing proportion of the population

The author assumes that:

People with degenerative brain disorders will live longer, because they can get kidney transplants, etc. However, they won’t be able to cure their brain disorders. because they can’t get brain transplants.

But wait!

What if medication treats these brain disorders? Or certain exercizes? Or something else entirely? Then the proportion of people with brain disorders will not increase, since the disorders will be treated in some non-transplant way.

(C) gets at this assumption.

(A) is unsupported. The author is saying that people with brain disorders will live longer, not that they will get sick at a younger age.

(B) the rarity of whether one gets more than one transplant is irrelevant.

(D) is irrelevant—whatever the size of the current proportion, will it increase?

(E) money is out of scope.

Best,
Rina

[mkd000]

I narrowed this question down to (C) and (D). I get why (C) is the better answer, however I'm still having trouble with eliminating (D). If DBD accounted for a large proportion of death (say, 99/100 deaths), then is it possible that those with DBD do not form an ever-increasing proportion of the population? I know its this whole proportion issue that is throwing me off (proportion of pop versus proportion of deaths) but I can't seem to put my finger on it.

Or is it just that? (That proportion of deaths is irrelevant to the conclusion re: proportion of population). If so, why am I struggling with accepting that!

Please help. Thanks

[eiwon21]

I have had similar problems with necessary assumption questions where I felt that negating the answer choice potentially could seem to lead to the conclusion being false.

However, if we negate D, saying that "Degenerative brain disorders DO NOT account for a very small proportion of deaths in the population at large," it has no effect on the argument that "those with degenerative brain disorders will form an ever increasing proportion of the population." They could have as well said that "degenerative brain disorders account for 99% of the deaths in population at large OR 1% of the deaths in population at large" and it would have no effect on the logical force of the argument because it doesn't provide any information about the percentage CHANGE of degenerative brain disorders in the population.

Furthermore, answer choice (D) is extraneous information and this is a Necessary assumption question. We don't really need any information about the proportion of DBD deaths for the argument to stand.

Maybe it would be a correct answer has it said something like "Degenerative brain disorder patients will continue to exist as at least some proportion of the living population"

Another thought (that I would appreciate feedback on): I would think that it would be wrong if the answer choice was "Degenerative brain disorder patients will continue to exist as a SMALL/LARGE/MAJORITY proportion of the living population" - since it then wouldn't be a necessary assumption ...

[esthertan0310]

I finally notice the words "will not" and "without".


The point of option C is actually

"There are degenerative brain disorders that can only be cured by brain transplants"

and apparently the author assumes this.