PT63.S3.Q11 - Web browsing for Medical Info

timyoder8

I picked A. Correct answer B. I don't see how the current groups give enough info to draw a conclusion.

JY states that the group of "people rely on the web when attempting to diagnose medical conditions" falls in to the group of "people who browse the web for medical information". True. But I don't think this matters?

We need to make an appeal that the first group, the people who rely on the web, will be fooled by the quackery. It's possible that the only people that group of people rely on the web only contains people with a medical background, as well as, people who can always discriminate between scientific valid theory and quackery, in which case, B doesn't assist at all in proving the conclusion because they are relying exclusively on scientifically valid information.

I see another necessary assumption being something that needs to eliminate this subgroup, and make it not possible to exist.
A was the best choice from here.

Follow up - does "typically" have a definition on the LSAT?

Admin Note: https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-63-section-3-question-11/

jakee008

The easiest way to separate B from A here is through the 'negation test' (an approach which you should take in evaluating answers on most NA questions). You simply 'negate' each answer by considering its inverse and whichever inverse renders the conclusion invalid or most severely harmed should be the argument's NA.

Here the negation test would turn A from "people who browse the web for medical information typically do so in an attempt to diagnose their medical conditions" to "people who browse the web for medical information typically DO NOT do so in an attempt to diagnose their medical conditions". This negated answer would not do much to our conclusion which concerns "doing more harm than good".

The inverse of B would, however. "People who attempt to diagnose their medical conditions likely WILL NOT do themselves more harm than good unless they rely exclusively on scientifically valid info." This significantly harms the conclusion indicating that it is the argument's necessary assumption.

Hope this helps.