In most Western countries, parents use medicinal pills to help their

Question

In most Western countries, parents use medicinal pills to help their children overcome simple viral illnesses such as the flu. These pills help the children overcome the flu, but they also have the effect of preventing the immune system from dealing with the viruses themselves, thus not allowing the immune system to fully develop. It is estimated that an immune system that hasn’t had to handle simple viral diseases such as the flu will be unable to deal with lethal viral diseases such as Ebola, smallpox or the Dengue virus. Therefore, by giving children pills to handle simple diseases, parents are actually harming them.

Which of the following would be most useful to determine in order to evaluate the argument above?

A. What the most common pills against viral illnesses such as the flu are. 
B. Whether the infant mortality rates for children in the West are higher now relative to what they were in the past. 
C. Whether the lethal viral diseases mentioned are found in Western countries. 
D. What percentage of parents in Western countries actually give their children pills 
E. Whether new pills will be developed that will both defeat simple illnesses and aid the development of the immune system.

kavach · Answer

In most Western countries, parents use medicinal pills to help their children overcome simple viral illnesses such as the flu. These pills help the children overcome the flu, but they also have the effect of preventing the immune system from dealing with the viruses themselves, thus not allowing the immune system to fully develop. It is estimated that an immune system that hasn’t had to handle simple viral diseases such as the flu will be unable to deal with lethal viral diseases such as Ebola, smallpox or the Dengue virus. Therefore, by giving children pills to handle simple diseases, parents are actually harming them.

This is an easy question. The most important thing to note is the conclusion of the argument - Therefore, by giving children pills to handle simple diseases, parents are actually harming them.
All we have to do is check whether the parents are really harming them or not.

Let's get to POE.

Which of the following would be most useful to determine in order to evaluate the argument above?

A. What the most common pills against viral illnesses such as the flu are. 
This is irrelevant. We don't care what are the most common ones.

B. Whether the infant mortality rates for children in the West are higher now relative to what they were in the past. 
This again is of no use. The author just talks about harming, not being able to deal with diseases, not about death.

C. Whether the lethal viral diseases mentioned are found in Western countries. 
Yes, this is the correct answer. If the answer to the above question is YES, it strengthens the argument and if the answer is NO, it weakens the argument. 
 
D. What percentage of parents in Western countries actually give their children pills 
This is irrelevant.

E. Whether new pills will be developed that will both defeat simple illnesses and aid the development of the immune system. 
We don't care if new ones come in the future. All we want to know is if the parents are currently harming the kids or not.

IMO C.

kitipriyanka · Answer

In most Western countries,  parents use medicinal pills(A)  to help their children  overcome simple viral illnesses such as the flu(B) .  These pills(A)  help the children  overcome the flu(B) , but they also have the effect of  preventing the immune system(C)  from dealing with the viruses themselves, thus not allowing the immune system to fully develop. It is estimated that an immune system that hasn’t had to  handle simple viral diseases such as the flu(B)  will be  unable to deal with lethal viral diseases such as Ebola, smallpox or the Dengue virus(D) . Therefore, by giving  children pills(A)  to  handle simple diseases(B) , parents are actually  harming them(E) .

From above analysis we have
A->B
A->C
B->D
Therefore,A->B->E(Assuming D is harmful)

In order to conclude A->B->E, we need to build the logical gap A->B->D->E
We need to understand the existence of D(viral diseases such as Ebola, smallpox or the Dengue virus) in order to conclude as above.
Option C helps us in analyzing

Hence C

gmatenthureturns · Answer

C IMO.

This is an evaluate question. The stimulus basically says parents are harming their children by giving them pills that do not let children's immune develop fully to fight harmful diseases. Below are my reasons to eliminate each option.

In most Western countries, parents use medicinal pills to help their children overcome simple viral illnesses such as the flu. These pills help the children overcome the flu, but they also have the effect of preventing the immune system from dealing with the viruses themselves, thus not allowing the immune system to fully develop. It is estimated that an immune system that hasn’t had to handle simple viral diseases such as the flu will be unable to deal with lethal viral diseases such as Ebola, smallpox or the Dengue virus. Therefore, by giving children pills to handle simple diseases, parents are actually harming them.

Which of the following would be most useful to determine in order to evaluate the argument above?

A. What the most common pills against viral illnesses such as the flu are. 
 Does not matter. We are trying to figure whether children are actually getting harmed by using those piils, we dont care what those piils are.

B. Whether the infant mortality rates for children in the West are higher now relative to what they were in the past. 
 Does not help. Mortality rates may get influenced by other 10,000 factors, doesn't have to be piils.
 
C. Whether the lethal viral diseases mentioned are found in Western countries. 
 Correct. If lethal viral diseases are not found in these countries, then piils are not harming children. If they are found, then piils do harm them.

D. What percentage of parents in Western countries actually give their children pills 
 Does not matter. We are trying to see if piils harm children, even if they harm just 1 child.

E. Whether new pills will be developed that will both defeat simple illnesses and aid the development of the immune system. 
 Out of scope. New pills are not discussed in the stimulus, so we dont care about them.

GKomoku · Answer

In most Western countries, parents use medicinal pills to help their children overcome simple viral illnesses such as the flu. These pills help the children overcome the flu, but they also have the effect of preventing the immune system from dealing with the viruses themselves, thus not allowing the immune system to fully develop. It is estimated that an immune system that hasn’t had to handle simple viral diseases such as the flu will be unable to deal with lethal viral diseases such as Ebola, smallpox or the Dengue virus. Therefore, by giving children pills to handle simple diseases, parents are actually harming them.

Let's decipher this argument:

In most Western countries, parents use medicinal pills to help their children overcome simple viral illnesses such as the flu.
The meaning of this sentence is quite clear not so convoluted and confusing. In families who live in most Western countries parents five medical pill to their children if if they have simple flu. Functions as premise, gives general information. Moreover we need to keep in mind that this general information relates to most eastern countries not thw whole world

These pills help the children overcome the flu,
these pills that parents give to their children help children overcome flu. Premise - gives additional information about pills' reaction

but they also have the effect of preventing the immune system from dealing with the viruses themselves,
we have opposition here, so even if pills help children they have bad effects also, such as preventing immune system to fight with viruses by itself, which is not good. most probably this part plays the role of the counter premise - defending the generic information about pills

thus not allowing the immune system to fully develop.
thus - indicator of conclusion, indeed this part is intermediate conclusion, supported by premise and counter premise. so now we know that at the end this pills don't allow immune system to fully develop

It is estimated that an immune system that hasn’t had to handle simple viral diseases such as the flu will be unable to deal with lethal viral diseases such as Ebola, smallpox or the Dengue virus.
The author continues the idea, this is premise. Gives us general estimation if immune system doesn't have experience with handling simple viruses such as flu, then it will be difficult or even impossible to overcome lethal viral diseases such as Ebola, smallpox or the Dengue virus. But this is generic information, we don't have exact data/statistics have been caried on people in Western countries.

Therefore, by giving children pills to handle simple diseases, parents are actually harming them.
Finally, 'therefore' - main conclusion, the author finalises his idea about giving pill to children for simple viruses. this actually harming children in a long term rather than helping them. But the connection between the last premise that lead us to the conclusion seems quite weak, it is just an estimation that X might happen if Y will happen, this not the fact or statistics for the extended period of time, so we must be careful while analysing the question stem and answer choices.

Which of the following would be most useful to determine in order to evaluate the argument above?
So we need to find piece of information that would best help determine the logical validity of the argument presented in the paragraph

POE

~~A. What the most common pills against viral illnesses such as the flu are.~~
even if we know what kind of common pills used asanist flue, what does it change?

~~B. Whether the infant mortality rates for children in the West are higher now relative to what they were in the past.~~
mortality rates for children - okay - what was the death cause? Ebola? Smallpox? Car accident? Fire? we don't know, hence irrelevant, even if the author comparing current and past data of the mortality rates

C. Whether the lethal viral diseases mentioned are found in Western countries.
oh yes, this will help us evaluate the authors judgement about damage of pill for children IN WESTERN COUNTRIES

~~D. What percentage of parents in Western countries actually give their children pills~~
given that we know that 37% of parents actually give their children pills, then? it doesn't help us much

~~E. Whether new pills will be developed that will both defeat simple illnesses and aid the development of the immune system.~~
this answer choices a little bit out of passage, we don't have information about aiding abilities of the pills, even if this abilities are going to be developed, it doesn't give us a hand to evaluate this argument.

C is the answer.

Vigasimrair · Answer

In most Western countries, parents use medicinal pills to help their children overcome simple viral illnesses such as the flu. These pills help the children overcome the flu, but they also have the effect of preventing the immune system from dealing with the viruses themselves, thus not allowing the immune system to fully develop. It is estimated that an immune system that hasn’t had to handle simple viral diseases such as the flu will be unable to deal with lethal viral diseases such as Ebola, smallpox or the Dengue virus. Therefore, by giving children pills to handle simple diseases, parents are actually harming them.

Which of the following would be most useful to determine in order to evaluate the argument above?

A. What the most common pills against viral illnesses such as the flu are.  - suppose we know this information, but it of no help for us. 
B. Whether the infant mortality rates for children in the West are higher now relative to what they were in the past.  - there may be other causes which influence mortality rates. Irrelevant 
C. Whether the lethal viral diseases mentioned are found in Western countries.  -Correct. No diseases - no harm 
D. What percentage of parents in Western countries actually give their children pills  - suppose there is only 1 parent. It will still be true that he do harm 
E. Whether new pills will be developed that will both defeat simple illnesses and aid the development of the immune system.  - Irrelevant, because at the moment we have concrete pills and concrete diseases. 
 
The answer is C

JonShukhrat · Answer

Variance Test   is probably the most helpful tool to figure out the correct answer choice to “Evaluate the Argument” type questions. 
We are looking for a question in the answer choices that – depending on the answer to the question – helps identify whether parents in Western countries harm their children by giving them pills to handle simple diseases.

Stimulus : In Western countries parents give their children a pill to overcome the flue. However, pills prevent their immune system to fully develop. Not fully developed immune system hardly can withstand against such lethal diseases as Ebola, smallpox or the Dengue virus. So actually parents harm their children.

Indeed humanity still doesn’t have any effective proven vaccine or medication against such viral disease as Ebola. Maybe the reason is that this virus frequently outbreaks only in poor African countries. Western countries fortunately free of such cases. We know that different climate, geography or hygiene related conditions in different countries will result in different viral diseases. If country A doesn’t suffer from a particular disease X from which B suffers, and if they don’t border, then it is logical that people in country A would rather worry about flue instead of X. The similar scenario repeats in our question. If Western countries don’t suffer from such viral diseases as Ebola, smallpox or the Dengue virus, then they would rather worry about the flu they have.

Let’s begin with the correct answer choice because analyzing it with the Variance Test will display why the other choices are wrong.

C.  Whether the lethal viral diseases mentioned are found in Western countries.

YES. If such viral diseases are found in Western countries than the conclusion of the author indeed holds true. Correspondingly, people giving pills to their children to cope less serious disease as the flu may later jeopardise the health of their children.

NOT. As we have already discussed above, in this case there is no place for worry. They would rather worry about the flu. Thus C is correct.

A.  What the most common pills against viral illnesses such as the flu are.

Knowing common pills will hardly help us identify whether author’s conclusion is true or not. The stimulus already says that pills given against flu deteriorate the immune system, regardless of their commonness or rareness. What we need to identify whether children actually get those lethal diseases.

B.  Whether the infant mortality rates for children in the West are higher now relative to what they were in the past.

YES. If children mortality rate is high, then can we safely conclude that there is some connection between this rate and giving pills to children? Do Ebola, smallpox or the Dengue virus cause this high rate? Not sure.

NOT. The same situation as above. We cannot figure out the reason of this rate just from the information given in this answer choice. Thus B is out.

D.  What percentage of parents in Western countries actually give their children pills.

100%. If all parents give pills to their children, does that fact necessarily mean that children will definitely get Ebola, smallpox or the Dengue virus? Not, we can’t safely infer this because such diseases may be absent in the West.

10% the same situation as above. We don’t know the way how children may contact the biruses.

E.  Whether new pills will be developed that will both defeat simple illnesses and aid the development of the immune system.

This answer choice is a trap, because it may seem to be answering our question. However, the stimulus discusses the effect of the current pills parents have. Therefore, hypothetical answer choices about future are not relevant to evaluate the argument.

Hence  C

MahmoudFawzy · Answer

premise:  
medicinal pills ---> overcome simple viral illness
medicinal pills ---> not fully developed immunity 
immune system that didn't handle simple viral illness ---->  can't handle lethal viral disease

conclusion:  
medicinal pills -->  harmful

To evaluate the argument, we should investigate whether there is a   link between   " the inability of handling lethal viral diseases " and a related " harmful effect "

A. What the  most common pills  against viral illnesses such as the flu are. 
 out of scope:  it doesn't matter which medicinal pills are used as long as they all have the same use and the same side effects. This still doesn't confirm whether the inability to handle lethal viral diseases can be harmful.

B. Whether the infant mortality rates for children in the West are higher now  relative to what they were in the past . 
 Not enough to conclude:  mortality rate, in general, has many factors contributing to it.
there is a possibility that mortality rate is high due to other epidemic diseases,
or there is low mortality rate although lethal viral diseases are causing a threat because this harm is compensated with proper medical care.

C. Whether the  lethal viral diseases mentioned are found  in Western countries. 
 Correct:  because if lethal viral diseases are not found in western countries, It will be meaningless to fear from something that doesn't exist.
But, if they are present, they may really threat those children with compromised immunity.

D. What  percentage of parents  in Western countries actually give their children pills 
 Irrelevant!:  whether the percent is high or low, it will just mean that more or less number of children are vulnerable to harm, if any.
But It will not confirm or deny the presence of harm.

E. Whether  new pills will be developed  that will both defeat simple illnesses and aid the development of the immune system. 
 Out of scope:  the passage is concerned with the present context. Predicted Future medications can't cure current children if they are under real harm.
and if there is no real harm, future medications will be of no advantage or use.

C

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