Q3 - Med unpleasant taste.

[ohthatpatrick]

What does the Question Stem tell us?
Strengthen (looks like Sufficient Assumption at first, but it's only asking which answer provides the "most support")

Break down the Stimulus:
Conclusion: M will probably be a capsule.
Evidence: The company making M makes all its meds in house, but it can't do soft-gel. Meds that taste bad are ususally made in tablet, capsule, or soft-gel. M couldn't be made in tablet form, because of some heat thing associated with making it.

Any prephrase?
Hmmm, if we start with tablet, capsule, and soft-gel as our three options, and the author rules out tablet and soft-gel, then aren't we left with capsule. Isn't her conclusion right already? It would be. But who said we're starting with tablet, capsule, and soft-gel as our three options? That's only the case if we have a med that tastes bad. Does M taste bad? We never heard that, and that's a critical missing piece of this argument.

Correct answer:
B

Answer choice analysis:
A) This would weaken the argument.

B) Bingo! This question allowed for such a precise pre-phrase, we should really be scanning for this answer and barely (or not) reading any others.

C) Doesn't make a difference, since we already know we're not using soft gel.

D) This weakens. M has a low melting point, so it would likely be soft-gel, according to this answer.

E) We don't need to rank tablet / capsule / soft-gel against each other in terms of taste. We already know we're not using tablet or soft-gel. We're just wondering if we're stuck with capsule as our final option (based on whether or not M has a bad taste).

Takeaway/Pattern: Although this was worded technically as Strengthen, it played out like Sufficient Assumption, because the argument was ALMOST a complete circuit of logic. We were just missing one crucial fact: M tastes bad. If you read an argument and it FEELS like it's actually logically sound, look for some tiny nuance/shift you missed. The correct answer just needs to patch up that one fault.

#officialexplanation

[aebq196234]

I am having a hard how seeing how it M tastes bad fills in the gap because in my head they already told us this. they said that Meds with an unpleasant taste come in one of three form and they all taste bad. They can't do the other two so they (M) has to use capsule form. i feel like this was directly given to us or is an inference. am I missing something?

[timmydoeslsat]

We are told that meds with an unpleasant taste generally come in 3 forms: ABC

We then talk about a certain med. We learn it cannot be done in forms A and B. We conclude that it will likely come in form C.

This would be a fine argument if we knew that this certain med has an unpleasant taste. We were not told whether this med has an unpleasant taste.