#15 - Medical ethicist: Assuming there is a reasonable

[cmeggs]

Out of all the Logical Reasoning questions I seem to be struggling the most with Parallel Reasoning. I narrowed the answer choices in this question down to B and C, but incorrectly chose B.
I am struggling to identify why C is a better choice than B, comparing the premises and conclusion of each to the question stem... They seem about the same to me!

Thanks,

Caitlin

[Jon Denning]

Hey Caitlin – thanks for the question. Let’s take a look at this stimulus in broad terms. It begins with the assertion that it’s okay to offer experimental treatments to patients who suffer from extreme symptoms of a disease because they’re best able to weigh the risk/reward aspect of the treatment. Then it concludes that it is never okay to offer those treatments to patients who don’t experience a disease’s severe symptoms. That’s obviously a flawed argument (never okay to offer a treatment just because the patient in question might not be in as good a position as someone else to make a cost/benefit analysis?), but consider the pieces: statement that one group is better able to make some type of judgment than another group, then absolute conclusion that people in the less-capable group shouldn’t have access to the thing in question.

Now compare the answers to that. B makes the claim that one can better judge an automobile’s worth by test driving it, but it doesn’t conclude that people who don’t do test drives shouldn’t be allowed to buy cars (which would be closer to the stimulus). It just concludes that an automobile deemed too costly it is “likely” it wasn’t test driven. Not the same type of conclusion.

For answer choice C, we have a statement about one group’s ability to judge the merits of something (raised in a country then travelled abroad = better able to judge merits of living in a country), and then an absolute conclusion that the opposite group (not raised/lived there) shouldn’t be able to do something (in this case, judge the merits of living there). That’s pretty much the exact same construction as the stimulus.

If you’re struggling with these questions go back and really spend some time deconstructing stimuli/argumentation and make sure you can identify the pieces as I’ve done here. Then be very precise when you look for those same exact pieces in the correct answer choice.

I hope this helps!

[cmeggs]

Thank you! Very helpful.