PT68.S2.Q12 - journalist: a book claiming that

Comments

• runiggyrun Alum Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐

  August 2016 2481 karma

  You are right about your reasons to be suspicious of B. The author doesn't take for granted that people "even remotely associated" with a drug company are going to be biased. The doctor in question is EMPLOYED by the company, not merely "remotely associated". B might have been correct if it said "author takes for granted that people employed by a drug manufacturer are unable to weigh the side effects..." So, B is out because the scope is too broad.
  
  As for D, "fails to address" is a fairly common phrasing for a "flaw" answer. I wouldn't focus too much on the words that introduce the answer, whether they "take for granted/fail to address/overlook/don't consider etc). It's usually not the introductory words that make the answer right or wrong, but the meat of the answer. And yes, in theory to have a 100% valid argument you do need to address all the potential "flaws", or implicit assumptions. In real life we aren't usually held up to the standard of 100% valid arguments, so if you say "My cat was left home alone. Now my furniture is all scratched. That darn cat scratched all my furniture!" most people will accept the argument and go along with the implicit assumptions that your cat is not declawed, that the furniture was not "all scratched" before you left and that nobody else had access to the apartment to generate the scratches. But if that was an LSAT argument you would need to address all these assumptions for the argument to be valid.
• daniel.noah.pearlberg Free Trial Member

  August 2016 70 karma

  The argument is assuming that if the physician's motivations are suspect, then the physician's reasoning in the book is suspect as well. Without this assumption (a very common flawed assumption on the LSAT) the argument falls apart. (D) is just a fancy way of pointing out that the journalist failed to consider that this assumption is flawed- just because the physician might benefit from arguing that the drug isn't dangerous, this in no way means that there is anything wrong with the actual reasoning the physician used to argue that the drug isn't dangerous. So, this answer choice isn't saying that that the journalist "failed to address adequately" any possible consideration that might possibly have a slight effect on the validity of the journalist's argument. It's just saying that he failed to consider the possibility the flawed assumption behind his argument is indeed flawed.
  (B) is way too strong in this case. The journalist makes an assumption about a specific individual- the physician- who is more than just "remotely associated" with the company. He gets paid by the company that manufactures the drug, so he will probably benefit if people think that the drug is safe, and he may be harmed a bit (financially) if people think that the drug is not safe.
• Tina Cho Free Trial Member

  August 2016 442 karma

  Thank you both,
  So...one question, @daniel.noah.pearlberg, so are you saying

  @runiggyrun said:
  in theory to have a 100% valid argument you do need to address all the potential "flaws", or implicit assumptions.
  

  This is not always the case? (or do you mean the same thing as what @runiggyrun said?)
  I mean are you saying the author is just attacking the implicit assumption and it's not always the case the author needs to address all flaws in the argument...but flaws in the assumption only?
  Not sure whether my question makes sense...
• Tina Cho Free Trial Member

  August 2016 edited August 2016 442 karma

  by the way who can those *remotely associated to a company* mean?
  
  
• daniel.noah.pearlberg Free Trial Member

  August 2016 70 karma

  No I basically agree with @runiggyrun , I was just pointing out that what the author is failing to address is really central to what's going on in the argument.
  "remotely associated to a company"- there are probably lots of ways to be remotely associated, but one example that comes to mind would be if you are casual acquaintances with an employee of the company.
• Tina Cho Free Trial Member

  August 2016 442 karma

  Thanks, so basically the answer needs to take the missed assumption into account and is usually related to the assumption, but maybe no need to attack other assumptions such as the ones the author did not think about...? cuz there could be tons of things the author might need to think about but no need to cover all of them right?
• daniel.noah.pearlberg Free Trial Member

  August 2016 70 karma

  I'm not quite sure what you mean by "no need to cover all of them"- many arguments contain more than one flaw, but only one of the answer choices will identify a flaw in the argument. Is that what you're asking?
• Tina Cho Free Trial Member

  August 2016 442 karma

  Yes...I guess.
  I thought arguments could miss or do not consider some possibilities relating to the conclusion...but if it is not addressed, it's either 1) not related to the conclusion 2) there is another flaw which the argument misses...right?
• runiggyrun Alum Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐

  August 2016 2481 karma

  I think for a lot of arguments you could probably think of multiple things the author is missing, but the correct answer will only point out one of them. Sufficient assumption questions are the only ones where the correct answer needs to make the argument perfect; for all others (NA, flaw, weaken, strengthen) the correct answer only needs to address one issue, not all.
  The key is that only one answer, the correct one, will point to any real "hole/implicit assumption" in the argument. The other answers will point to things that might look like holes in the argument, but are actually not (like B which is too broad to be an actual assumption).
  For the trickier questions, that's actually part of the difficulty. You read the argument and come up with 3 flaws, but you read the answers and none of them match the 3 flaws you found because they are going after a 4th one that you didn't think about upfront. That's why it's important to have an idea of what the most glaring flaw might be, but keep an open mind about flaws you might have not thought about.