Q2 - A director of the Rexx

[Jake_Albertane]

Okay I really didn't like the fact I got this one wrong but I want to dissect it. I chose E for this one and I booted A because I felt the wording wasn't strong enough.

A: Vaccines are administered to many more people than are most other pharmaceutical products.

Why did they have to use "most"? Couldn't that exclude medicines? Maybe medicine isn't part of the most and is infact administered more than Vaccines are. (Plus the multiple factor of being administered many times per patient)

Can someone help me understand this one better. Thank you!

[Shiggins]

I hope I can help on your question.

You are right that medicines might not be part of the "most". But you are looking to weaken the claim that governments should subsidize.

One reason for subsidy is the low profitability compared to medicines.

If vaccines are administered more than most other products, than it could affect profits by increasing them leading to weakening the idea of subsidizing by gov.

E- This one talks about administering cost. That is different from production costs. This choice has no bearing because the development costs could still warrant a gov subsidy.

I hope this helps. If anyone wants to clarify, correct, much appreciated.

[mxl392]

I chose answer B and I'm having problems seeing why this is wrong.

If the director's argument is that vaccines should be subsidized because they are less profitable than medicine, then any statement that suggests the contrary would be the right answer, right?

Answer choice B states that vaccines are designed to prevent diseases that would otherwise be treated by medicine. Therefore, if a person is vaccinated, they wouldn't need medicine. In this case, vaccines aren't less profitable than medicines because they reduce the demand for medicine... right?

[vincent_1vs]

I get your logic. I initially chose this one too, but when reviewing it I realized it gives us another reason to choose medicine over vaccine (why would you get an injection when there are pills that are equally effective?). So this can be interpreted as the opposite of what we are looking for.

[WaltGrace1983]

I'm going to rehash this weaken question because, in my opinion, the stimulus is fairly confusing and I want to make sure I understand the structure of the question.

Each vaccine is administered to a patient only once; other medicines are administered many times
(→)
Sales of vaccines are likely to be lower
(→)
Marketing of vaccines = less profitable than any other pharmaceutical product
→
The development costs for new vaccines should be subsidized by the govt.

It is absolutely essentially to note that I only lay this argument out for my own benefit of seeing the structure. Most of this argument (the stuff in orange) is absolutely irrelevant for the purposes of this question. Why? Because the stem is asking us to do one thing: weaken the support offered for the claim concerning "Marketing of vaccines = less profitable than any other pharmaceutical product." Now this does not mean completely ignore everything else. I think you should try to understand the structure but I think the meat of what we are being asked about is just our main focus and, if no answer choices look correct, we may broaden our scope.

Each vaccine is administered to a patient only once; other medicines are administered many times
→
Sales of vaccines are likely to be lower

So what is the gap here? This is a weaken question so let's analyze what it could be. Now notice in the stimulus that we are comparing "vaccines" vs. "medicines that combat diseases and chronic illnesses." Thinking about this, we might ask ourselves "well just because it is administered only once does NOT mean that the sales are going to be lower. Maybe more people get vaccines." I mean, keep in mind that we are talking about the likes of "chronic illnesses" and such! How many people get the flue vaccine? How many people get treatment for AIDS or cancer or whatever. This is important because IF we know something about how many people get these vaccines THEN we might be able to say to the author, "whoa now! # of administrations doesn't matter nearly as much as how many people receive them!"

(A) gives us exactly that. If the vaccines are administered to many more (not just more; many more), then we might be able to say that the conclusion doesn't really follow. As for the earlier question, you are totally right! We don't know that these vaccines are going to be more profitable due to what happens with "most other pharmaceutical products." HOWEVER, this is a weaken question, not a sufficient assumption question. We don't need to KNOW anything but rather just introduce a reasonable shadow of doubt. And by the way, "most" is a very common word on correct strengthen/weaken answer choices.

(B) This actually has nothing to do with the support, the meat of what we are talking about. This just says that vaccines and medicines can sometimes do the same thing yet this speaks nothing to the number of people receiving the vaccinations or how often they are administered.

(C) Great but this is irrelevant. We are comparing vaccines vs. medicines so we can move along.

(D) Also completely irrelevant. We are talking about Rexx here.

(E) This says that the companies that manufacture the vaccine rarely have to pay the cost of administration. However, are actually more concerned about the sales of the product here (that is what the support we are trying to undermine is related to). Profitability is certainly being discussed in (E) but it just simply doesn't talk about the sales.

Hope that helps!

[alexroark5]

I disagree with your explanation for answer choice B.

The important distinction to be noticed in answer choice B is that the medicines would treat the disease AFTER you've already contracted it. So it is plausible to assume that the sale of vaccines designed to PREVENT the diseases would not decrease since people might not want to contract the disease in the first place, whether or not medicines can eventually treat the disease or not.

[WaltGrace1983]

I disagree with your explanation for answer choice B.

The important distinction to be noticed in answer choice B is that the medicines would treat the disease AFTER you've already contracted it. So it is plausible to assume that the sale of vaccines designed to PREVENT the diseases would not decrease since people might not want to contract the disease in the first place, whether or not medicines can eventually treat the disease or not.

I see your point but I still do not believe that it is relevant. We still need to know how many people are getting vaccines vs. getting other pharmaceuticals.

Vaccines administered only once
Medicines are administered many times
→
Vaccines will be less profitable

We don't really need to know about the diseases at all.

[bharbin1544]

I originally missed this one under time constraints. I chose E more or less from a lack of understanding the question. I understand the reasons A is correct, but I am going to type it out to drive it home for myself.

This is a weakening question. Our job here is to weaken the support structure between the premises and conclusion.

Premise: The marketing of vaccines by the Rexx company are promised to be less profitable than the marketing of any other pharmaceutical product. The director continued to add that the sales of vaccines are going to be lower because each vaccine is only administered to a patient once. He added that medicines that combat diseases and chronic illnesses are administered many more times during a patients lifetime.

Conclusion: Since the profits of vaccines are supposedly going to be lower due to each person only requiring one, the government should help subsidize the development costs of these vaccines.

Initially, I had a hard time seeing the gap from the brain fart I was suffering from. But the gap here is the fact that vaccines are only given to a patient once, but they are going to be used on MORE people than most other products. Their profit margin on each may be lower, but sales will still be high because of the sheer number that are going to be used and sold.

(A) This will do it. Again, by administering more total vaccines, the costs will be offset by higher sales numbers than "most other pharmaceutical products" would have.

(B) Many? But how many? Which ones? This doesn't help us weaken the argument for subsidizing.

(C) Who cares?

(D) Again, who cares? We aren't talking about other companies. We are talking about Rexx.

(E) Originally chose this in a panic because of the word administering. But, administering costs are not the same as production/development costs. This doesn't matter.

[WhimsicalWillow]

Note: This question is a good example of indicators “most” being in the correct AC and an interesting Q stem with multi-premise support.

Carefully read the question stem. Question stem asks you “Which of the following if true most weakens THE SUPPORT offered by the director for the claim concerning the marketing of vaccines?”
-Pay attention to the Q stem in case it is asking you to do something weird like this.

C: Gov. should subsidize the development costs of new vaccines

P:“In support of this claim…” Marketing of vaccines is less profitable than marketing of other pharmaceutical products.

If you were also stuck between A and E, I will explain while A is correct and E is wrong.

A) Vaccines are administered to many more people than are most other pharmaceutical products
– While blind reviewing, I did not feel the wording was strong enough and so “many” and “most” caused me to avoid it. However, note that “most” is a common word in correct strengthen/weakening answer choices.

-If vaccines are administered more frequently than other pharmaceutical products, then it could increase vaccine sales which weakens the claim “vaccine sales are likely to be lower”

E) The cost of administering a vaccine is rarely borne by the pharmaceutical company that manufactures that vaccine
-E is a trap answer choice and an LSAT example of tricking you with incorrect term shift

– Term shift: Administering the cost of the vaccine is different than the development cost in the stimulus, “…argued development costs for new vaccines should be subsidized by the government”

-Also, 2nd incorrect Term shift: it does not weaken the claim because we are focused on the sales of vaccines vs. administering costs. We are focused on weakening the claim that “sales are of vaccines are likely to be lower” not administering costs