Q7 - Researcher: The use of the newest

[rbetita]

Hi,

So I narrowed it down to B and C, and I chose C, so I was wondering if I could get some help as to why C is correct?

I know the argument core is:

P- treatment wreaks havoc with body, causing severe side effects

C- The use of the the newest drug discontinued

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I chose (C) because the drug causes these negative side effects to patients, so I assumed that it must be given to every patient with the disease. Also, "patient" is not in the stimulus.

Is (B) correct because the arguer only focuses on the negative side effects and doesn't consider what will occur if the drug is not available? Also, because it deals with "treatment" in a relevant manner to the argument?

[extraordinary.kye]

Here, she points out all of the nasty effects caused by the newest drug for a certain disease, and argues that its use should be discontinued. Unfortunatly she doesn't say anything about all other drugs that are used to treat the disease, maybe they're equally bad, or even worse. Or maybe the disease itself is worse than these side effects. There could be other reason why we should not use which author ignores in answer choice (B).

Answer choice (C) isn't necessary true, researcher only argues that we should stop using the new drug, regardless of what other drugs patients might be using.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Nice explanation extraordinary.kye! You nailed it.

One of the interesting things about the side affects described in the argument is that they sound an awful lot like those associated with chemotherapy. We all know that such a treatment is commonly used to treat cancer, whether it's a drug or not, that I'm not sure of.

But with cancer the consequences of not undergoing chemotherapy can be death. And in comparison losing one's hair or having aching joints doesn't seem all that bad. Presenting the negative consequences of using the drug and suggesting that they're terrible doesn't lead to the conclusion that not using the drug is better than using the drug - remember that this is a relative comparison and so we should consider all of the positives and negatives associated both with using the drug and not using the drug. This argument fails to consider the negative consequences of not using the drug - best stated in answer choice (B).

Let's look at the incorrect answer choices:

(A) is technically true, and yet does not represent a flaw in the reasoning. Be careful on answer choices that while true do not answer the question.
(C) is not an assumption of the argument. The author's conclusion does not rest on assumption regarding the percentage of patients with the disease that are treated with the drug. Even if only some of those who had the disease were treated with the drug, if using the drug was worse than the not, it should still be discontinued.
(D) could be an important consideration had the argument discussed the effectiveness of the drug from evidence based on a study that measure the effects over a limited time frame.
(E) is not true. The author says that such side affects are usually the case, implying that for some they may not be - which would represent a reduction in the severity of the side affects.

Hope that helps, and great work extraordinary.kye!