Q12 - Carl: Researchers who perform operations

[skapur777]

Debbie is basically saying, listen people can be told by doctors of how much pain is to be expected for surgery, and then they can make a decision. Animals can't do this, so pain protocols are unnecessary.

I picked E for this answer because I figured that pain protocols, as stated by Carl, initiate steps to 'minimize or alleviate pain' and thus if unalleviated pain (due to lack of pain protocol) delays the healing process, maybe pain protocols should be used?

I initially had D but I couldn't see how that was convincing. Some surgical operations on infants are painful but its not like infants are waltzing into hospitals themselves. I can see that, 'well since infants can't make these decisions, we have no choice but to do pain protocols' but isn't that a little silly? Shouldn't it be a common sense assumption that infants won't be deciding to get or not get surgery, and that an elder would and thus Debbie's argument still stands. Am I making too much of a leap in pulling outside information? I thought that perhaps I am, and that's probably why I got it wrong but wouldn't this common sense assumption apply here?

[bbirdwell]

Debbie is basically saying, listen people can be told by doctors of how much pain is to be expected for surgery, and then they can make a decision. Animals can't do this, so pain protocols are unnecessary

Pretty much. So focus on weakening the logic of her conclusion.

(A)... so what?

(B)... so what?

(C)... so what? If Debbie had said "We shouldn't have protocols because we can't afford to," this would be a better answer.

(D) yes! Why? Infants can't make decisions, and Debbie's argument is based on the idea that humans can make decisions. Therefore Debbie's conclusion, that pain protocols are unnecessary for human beings, is weakened, because these particular human beings cannot decide whether they want the procedure or not.

(E) is wrong because the discussion has nothing to do with what happens after an operation.

Not sure exactly what you meant by "common sense," etc. Don't worry about common sense on the LSAT. Just identify conclusions and evidence, and evaluate the logic.

[deedubbew]

If parents could assess the situation and make decisions for the infant, would not still be possible that "pain protocols for human beings are unnecessary?"

Debbie is basically saying, listen people can be told by doctors of how much pain is to be expected for surgery, and then they can make a decision. Animals can't do this, so pain protocols are unnecessary

Pretty much. So focus on weakening the logic of her conclusion.

(A)... so what?

(B)... so what?

(C)... so what? If Debbie had said "We shouldn't have protocols because we can't afford to," this would be a better answer.

(D) yes! Why? Infants can't make decisions, and Debbie's argument is based on the idea that humans can make decisions. Therefore Debbie's conclusion, that pain protocols are unnecessary for human beings, is weakened, because these particular human beings cannot decide whether they want the procedure or not.

(E) is wrong because the discussion has nothing to do with what happens after an operation.

Not sure exactly what you meant by "common sense," etc. Don't worry about common sense on the LSAT. Just identify conclusions and evidence, and evaluate the logic.

[WaltGrace1983]

Carl is saying that there should be pain protocols for human beings. Yet Debbie responds with the following...

A person for whom a doctor wants to schedule surgery can simply be told what pain to expect and then decide whether or not to undergo the operation
→
Pain protocols are unnecessary for human beings

The problem is that Debbie talks about a more narrow population of people in the premises, those who can actively decide and understand what the doctor is saying, then who she talks about in the conclusion, human beings. What if not everyone can actively listen and understand? For example, I am sure people who are deaf get surgeries too or people with mental challenges.

(A) We never said they were! We are specifically talking about painful surgeries though so this can be thrown out.

(B) This is very vague and inconsequential. "Some" experimentation? That could be referring to anything and everything.

(C) Who cares what it takes to prepare a pain protocol, is it necessary is the question!

(D) This touches on what we were thinking! Infants are obviously not going to be able to understand what is going on and actively decide to undergo surgery. However, Debbie never discusses them! Thus, we can see why a pain protocol can very well be necessary for some human beings.

(E) But does this make pain protocol necessary?

[bharbin1544]

This is a weakening question.

Debbie's argument basically says that pain protocols are essentially pointless because all a person has to do is simply be told the amount of pain to expect and decided further on whether to have the surgery or not. Since this is a weakening question, we should find some gap that the author left and expose it. In this particular argument, the author left gaps a plenty. First of all, what if the person can't communicate or doesn't understand the pain scale? What if every person is affected by pain differently? With all these things running in my mind, I proceeded to the AC's.

(A) This does nothing to the argument. Ok, not all operations are painful. Well, which ones are or aren't? Was the person told the amount of pain to expect?

(B) Completely irrelevant. This focuses on Carl's argument which we couldn't care less about.

(C) So what if it is? This doesn't weaken the argument structure.

(D) Correct. This goes with one of my pre-phrases. Similar to Carls argument, an infant is not going to have the ability to effectively communicate with the doctor regarding what type of pain one might be in. Hell, all an infant is going to know how to talk about is food, pee and poop. This definitely weakens the argument.

(E) How does this impact the structure? It doesn't. This AC fast forwards to post operation without addressing the argument structure which centered on an issue pre-op.