Q19 - Editorial: Medical schools spend one

[clarafok]

hello,

i was really confused with this one...i couldn't even eliminate answers!

so the argument is basically saying that preventive medicine is cheaper than curative medicine, so if they want to make medicine more cost-effective, they're not spending enough time teaching preventive medicine.

so the gap here is that spending more time teaching preventive medicine will make medicine more cost effective? so i chose B instead of E, even though it didn't really make sense to me why but i just chose B anyway because all the other answers looked equally irrelevant!

so now that i'm looking at it the second time, is the answer E because it explains the number of hours sufficient for teaching preventive medicine so that it would make medicine more cost-effective? i think i got thrown off by 'teach preventive medicine thoroughly'...

could someone please tell me if my logic is correct?

thanks in advance!

[bbirdwell]

Yeah. What if you can thoroughly teach preventive medicine in 5 minutes for every ten hours spent teaching curative? Then would the conclusion hold that we're spending insufficient time teaching it? Nope.

Therefore, you original analysis was pretty good, you just didn't see it in the choices. For the conclusion to work, it must be true that we're not spending enough time teaching preventive medicine! That's the big assumption here -- that 1 hr of preventive for every 10 of curative is INSUFFICIENT to get the job done.

If (B) were true, we could reduce medical costs to zero in 10-15 hours! Yay! This doesn't HAVE to be true in order for the argument to work. And it's way too specific to be a good candidate for a guess on an assumption question.

Now, for what kind of question would (B) be a *better* answer?

[clarafok]

thanks for clearing that up!

hmm and for B, i would say if the conclusion says:

if their goal is to make medicine more cost-effective, they should increase the number of hours spent on teaching preventive medicine.

is that right?

[rhb5r]

I think B would be good for a strengthen question

[bbirdwell]

I think B would be good for a strengthen question

Yes!

[JensMJimenez89]

Okay, but the answer is E right?

[tommywallach]

Look it up! : )

-t

[WaltGrace1983]

For every 10 hours spent teaching C, med schools spend 1 hour teaching P
+
P cuts down medical costs
-->
If goal is to be more cost-effective, med schools spend insufficient time teaching P

We already know that P cuts down medical costs and we know that P is a good route to go in order to be "more cost-effective." However, the big question here is about sufficiency. The flaw is that we cannot make an absolute statement (about the sufficiency of P) on merely a comparison between hours of P vs. C. In other words, The argument is assuming that - because of the 10:1 ratio of C to P - P is somehow insufficient.

(A) We don't need to explain the premises; we don't need to show WHY P medicine is cheaper. We also don't need to assume anything about this. Eliminate.

(B) Like (A), this is merely just explaining the premises. This is also not necessary. What if every hour reduced costs by 9%. Would the argument be hurt? No. Eliminate.

(C) I am wondering why this is relevant. Let's say this isn't true. Does it do anything to the argument? No. We need to know about sufficiency! Eliminate.

(D) Do we need to assume much about C? No. In addition, what if would do a little more than "only" increase overall medical costs? This is a bit irrelevant and a bit extreme.

(E) This is nearly perfect. It relates the premise that compares the relationship between P/C to the conclusion which talks about sufficiency. Correct.