Q13 - There are tests to detect

[b91302310]

I could elimiate (C), (D) and (E) and understand why (A) is necessary, but why (B) is incorrect?

Could anyone explain it?

Thanks!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Oh! This is one nuance that I'm sure you'll pick up rather quickly. Remember on a necessary assumption, we're looking an answer choice that must be true, in order for the conclusion to have a chance of being true.

Answer choice (B) could be false, and yet the conclusion still could be true. It's simply too strong. There's no need for most diseases linked to rare genetic flaws to be preventable, but rather that at least some are preventable.

This is a subtle difference but an important one. You'll find that many answer choices to necessary assumption questions can be eliminated for similar reasons.

Does that clear this one up?

[odst117]

I'm sorry, but I don't understand. It says that it costs the healthcare system less to PREVENT a disease than to treat it after it has occurred. It does not say that preventative treatment is less expensive, but rather that preventing a disease is less expensive.
So wouldn't it be necessary that these diseases be preventable?

[sportsfan8491]

I hope that I can clear up some of the confusion with this one.

The premises give us some information about tests that are able to screen for rare genetic traits, so that we can then predict the chances that someone will develop a certain disease and presumably treat the individual when the disease is still in its latent stages. The argument then concludes that because the cost of prevention (alone) is less of a financial strain on the healthcare system than is the treatment option for curing the disease once it has developed more fully, further cost reductions will be available if we implement these screening tests.

The argument tries to confuse us by getting to think that it has discussed the costs associated with the screening tests, but I'd ask you to go back to the argument and pinpoint the exact spot that it does so. You'll notice that you won't be able to find anything about the costs associated with the screening tests in the stimulus. Be careful not to combine the cost of preventive treatment and cost of the genetic screening tests into the same concept or idea because they are two very separate concepts or ideas. We are only given the relative costs for "preventive treatment" vs. "non-preventive treatment", but nothing is said about the costs associated with the genetic screening tests themselves and what impact they'd have on healthcare costs.

This is why the assumption in answer choice (A) is necessary in order for the argument to hold. If answer choice (A) weren't true, then it becomes much more difficult to be able to use the cost consideration factor as a relevant justification for the "smaller financial burden on the healthcare system" claim that the conclusion makes.

Answer choice (B) is wrong because it doesn't talk about the aforementioned cost considerations and the negation of this answer wouldn't have any effect on the author's argument. We know that the person can potentially receive the appropriate treatment for "some", so even if you make the claim that "most are not preventable," the author of the argument would probably counter your claim with this statement: "yeah, but I already qualified what I said to 'some'!"

(C), (D), and (E) are wrong because they don't give us any information or make any comparison about the relative costs associated with the "screening tests plus the preventive treatment" method vs. the "non-preventive treatment" method.

I hope this is helpful.

[sclw64]

I have some questoins.
A:I don't think A is correct because the cost of screening could not be necessarily covered by health-care system.
B: it is true that even preventing a disease rather than treating it can save money, but how about many diseases which cannot be prevented. if we Screen them and find many diseases that cannot be prevented, the cost of screening is still covered and the cost of treating still exists.
D: if rare genetic flaws do not develop diseases, then what about the cost of screening? In the time when there was no screening technique, the cost of treating can be saved because people even don't know the disease. so the cost of screening is additional.