Self-study
“Addiction” has been defined as “dependence on and abuse of a psychoactive substance. ██████████ ███ █████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ████ ██ █████ ████████ ███ ████████ ██████ ████████ ███ ██████ █████████ ██ ████████ ██ ███████ █████ █████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ███ █████ ████████████████ █ ██████ ███ █████ █ ████ ███████ █████ █████████ ██ ███ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███████████████ ██ ██████████
Structure: Counter-Argument
The stimulus argues against a certain definition of "addiction" as "dependence on and abuse of a psychoactive substance." The main premise is that dependence and abuse are not always linked, and the argument appeals to two examples to demonstrate this point: cancer patients dependent on morphine to reduce pain, but not abusing it, and people abusing a drug without being dependent on it. The argument concludes that the definition cited for addiction is incorrect.
Analysis: Notable Assumptions
This argument rests on a number of assumptions. Notice that just showing that two phenomena, A and B (in this case, dependence and abuse), don't always occur together, doesn't mean that when they do occur together, they don't constitute a unique third phenomenon, C (in this case, addiction). To defeat the definition of C as "A AND B," the argument assumes that the cases of only A and only B also qualify as phenomenon C.
Let's use an analogy. Imagine a rule: "to get into the concert, you need both a ticket and a wristband." If I respond by saying, "That can't be true! That person over there has a wristband, but no ticket. And that person over there has a ticket, but no wristband." You can probably see that the effectiveness of my argument completely depends on whether those people got into the concert or not. If they didn't get into the concert, then these examples are completely irrelevant: it doesn't matter that A and B (wristband and ticket) can occur independently; you still need both for phenomenon C (getting into the concert). But if those people did get into the concert, then I have effectively undermined the rule.
In the same way, the question about the cancer patients dependent on morphine and the people abusing the drug without being dependent on it is: do these cases qualify as addiction? If not, then they aren't relevant to the definition at all, and the argument falls apart. If so, then they show that the definition, by requiring both dependence and abuse to qualify as "addiction," is too restrictive.
13.
The relevance of the example ██ ██████ ████████ ██ ███ ████████ ███████ ██ ███ ██████████ ████
a
cancer patients never █████ ████████
Incorrect. Imagine negating this statement: cancer patients "sometimes" abuse morphine. The author's point with this example is just to show that certain cases of dependence don't necessarily also involve abuse. Negating (A) doesn't disprove that: even if cancer patients sometimes abuse morphine, most cases where cancer patients become dependent on morphine could still not involve abuse. Negating this particular assumption doesn't destroy the relevance of the example, so we can't say (A) is a necessary assumption.
b
cancer patients often ██████ █████████ ██ ████████
Incorrect. The author isn't making a point about frequency. The point of the example is to illustrate the premise that dependence and abuse are not always linked. As long as there are some cases where cancer patients are dependent on morphine but not abusing it, this would still illustrate the point. So negating this answer choice to "cancer patients rarely become dependent on morphine" wouldn't destroy the relevance of this example.
c
cancer patients who ███ █████████ ██ ████████ ███ ████████ ██ ██
Correct. If this example of dependence without abuse doesn't count as a case of addiction, then it doesn't function as a counterexample to the definition of addiction as involving both dependence and abuse. This example only undermines that definition if it does count as "addiction" even though these patients aren't abusing morphine and are only dependent on it. This is a necessary assumption.
d
cancer patients who █████ █ ████ ███ █████████ ██ ██
Incorrect. The example isn't about cancer patients abusing any drugs; it's about cancer patients being dependent on a drug without abusing it.
e
cancer patients cannot ██████ ██ ████████ ███████ ███████ ██
Incorrect. This actually contradicts what the stimulus explicitly says: that dependence and abuse don't always go together, and that cancer patients dependent on morphine aren't abusing it.