LSAT 119 – Section 2 – Question 03

LSAT 119 - Section 2 - Question 03

June 2005

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT119 S2 Q03
+LR
Most strongly supported +MSS
Principle +Princ
Rule-Application +RuleApp
A
8%
160
B
83%
164
C
1%
159
D
2%
154
E
7%
160
121
138
155
 +Easier 144.676 +SubsectionEasier

J.Y.’s explanation

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Philosopher: Effective tests have recently been developed to predict fatal diseases having a largely genetic basis. Now, for the first time, a person can be warned well in advance of the possibility of such life-threatening conditions. However, medicine is not yet able to prevent most such conditions. Simply being informed that one will get a disease that is both fatal and incurable can itself be quite harmful to some people. This raises the question of whether such “early warning” tests should be made available at all.

Summary

The philosopher says that we can now effectively test people for some genetically-based deadly diseases, so we can warn people in advance if they’re at risk. Unfortunately, we can’t prevent most of these conditions yet. What’s more, learning that you will get a deadly and unpreventable disease can be psychologically harmful. So, the philosopher wonders whether we should use these tests at all.

Strongly Supported Conclusions

The philosopher’s claims support these principles:

Having more knowledge of one’s future health risks is not always beneficial for health.

If new medical tests risk causing people harm while not offering the possibility of a cure, it may be best not to conduct the tests.

Developments in medicine can lead to questions of how and when they should be used.

A
The advance of medicine fails to provide solutions to every problem.

This is not supported. While this claim is factually true, it’s not the focus of the philosopher’s claims. The philosopher is trying to indicate a question raised by medical advancement, not make the point that medicine can’t solve all problems.

B
The advance of medicine creates new contexts in which ethical dilemmas can arise.

This is strongly supported. The philosopher discusses new testing to raise the question of whether or not the new tests should be offered at all. In other words, whether or not to offer the tests is an ethical dilemma that arises due to an advance in medicine.

C
Medical technologies continue to advance, increasing our knowledge and understanding of disease.

This is not supported. The point of the philosopher’s claims isn’t to show that medical technology is advancing over a sustained period of time, the point is about new questions that are arising in medicine.

D
The more we come to learn, the more we realize how little we know.

This is not supported. The philosopher doesn’t indicate anything about realizing how little we know, and there’s no part of the stimulus that suggests a gap in our knowledge being revealed.

E
The advance of technology is of questionable value.

This is not supported. The philosopher doesn’t bring into question the value of technology in general, or even the value of this new kind of testing. Just saying that we maybe shouldn’t use a technology for now doesn’t mean it’s without value.

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LSAT PrepTest 119 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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