Medical research findings are customarily not made public prior to the

Question

Medical research findings are customarily not made public prior to their publication in a medical journal that has had them reviewed by a panel of experts in a process called peer review. It is claimed that this practice delays public access to potentially beneficial information that, in extreme instances, could save lives. Yet pre publication peer review is the only way to prevent erroneous and therefore potentially harmful information from reaching a public that is ill equipped to evaluate medical claims on its own. Therefore, waiting until a medical journal has published the research findings that have passed peer review is the price that must be paid to protect the public from making decisions based on possibly substandard research.

The argument assumes that

(A) unless medical research findings are brought to peer review by a medical journal, peer review will not occur

(B) anyone who does not serve on a medical review panel does not have the necessary knowledge and expertise to evaluate medical research findings

(C) the general public does not have access to the medical iournals in which research findings are published

(D) all medical research findings are subjected to pre publication Peer review

(E) peer review panels are sometimes subject to political and professional pressures that can make their judgments less than impartial

Source: LSAT

TommyWallach · Accepted Answer

Medical research findings are customarily not made public prior to their publication in a medical journal that has had them reviewed by a panel of experts in a process called peer review. It is claimed that this practice delays public access to potentially beneficial information that, in extreme instances, could save lives. Yet prepublication peer review is the only way to prevent erroneous and therefore potentially harmful information from reaching a public that is ill equipped to evaluate medical claims on its own. Therefore, waiting until a medical journal has published the research findings that have passed peer review is the price that must be paid to protect the public from making decisions based on possibly substandard research.

This is an assumption question, so we need to look at the conclusion and premises once again.

Conclusion: Medical journal peer review is only way people can avoid bad research.
Premises: Research subject to peer review before publication in journals, to be sure false research doesn't get out

(A) unless medical research findings are brought to peer review by a medical journal, peer review will not occur
ANSWER: When in doubt about the correct answer on an assumption question, try the NOT test. Take the opposite of this answer choice. "Peer Review can occur without being brought to peer review by a medical journal"  . Uh-oh. Now we don't need to get peer review from a journal, so the journal itself is not the only way to protect the public.

(B) anyone who does not serve on medical review panel does not have the necessary knowledge and expertise to evaluate medical research finding
PROBLEM: This is tempting because the passage says something close to it. But we don't care if SOME people have the expertise outside of the panel itself. It's enough to know that some people don't. I can see that A LOT of you liked this answer choice. Be wary of picking something because the passage says something close to it. The passage says that SOME people don't have the necessary knowledge to evaluate research, not ALL of them. The "anyone" here goes WAY too far.

(C) the general public does not have access to the medical journals in which research findings are published
PROBLEM: Once the journals are released, the info has been peer reviewed. In reality, we NEED the public to have access to the journals.

(D) all medical research findings are subjected to prepublication peer review
PROBLEM: "All" is always a dangerous word, so be careful of it. Let's try the not test: "All medical research findings are NOT subjected to prepublication peer review." But couldn't that be because they aren't published at all? We don't need ALL medical research findings to get the review, just the stuff that might get out to the public.

(E) peer review panels are sometimes subject to political and professional pressures that can make their judgments less than impartial
PROBLEM: This hurts our argument, because we want people on the peer review panels to be protecting the public.

KarishmaB · Answer

Premises: - Medical research findings are customarily not made public prior to their publication in a medical journal that gets peer review done. - It is claimed that this practice delays public access to potentially beneficial information that could save lives. - Yet pre publication peer review is the only way to prevent potentially harmful information from reaching public. Conclusion: Waiting until a medical journal has published the research findings that have passed peer review is the price that must be paid to protect the public from making decisions based on possibly substandard research. Note the gap: The premises say that "peer review is the only way to prevent harmful info" while the conclusion says "waiting for a medical journal to publish peer reviewed research is the price that must be paid". The logical thing would be wait for "peer review" not for "publishing in a medical journal" (A) unless medical research findings are brought to peer review by a medical journal, peer review will not occur Yes. This bridges the gap between peer review and medical journal. Peer review is what is essential, not medical journal. This options tells us that peer review happens only when the medical journal gets it done. Hence, this establishes the necessity of the medical journal. (B) anyone who does not serve on a medical review panel does not have the necessary knowledge and expertise to evaluate medical research findings Not necessary. The argument talks about public in general. There could be some people who would have the required skill. (C) the general public does not have access to the medical iournals in which research findings are published Publishing in a journal is how the research findings reach the general public. (D) all medical research findings are subjected to pre publication Peer review Needn't be "all". Medical research findings are customarily ... (E) peer review panels are sometimes subject to political and professional pressures that can make their judgments less than impartial The shortcomings of peer review are not a point of contention. The issue is what happens if there is no peer review. Answer (A) Discussion on Assumption Questions: https://youtu.be/O0ROJfljRLU A Hard Assumption Question: https://youtu.be/0j4tovGifIg

Bunuel · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

(A) Yes.  There may be ways other than medical journals for researchers to get their work reviewed by their colleagues.

(B) No. This is too strong. The passage only assumes that  most people  who don’t serve on medical review panels (i.e., the public) do not have the knowledge to evaluate research findings.

(C) No. The argument is about the delay of research before publication, not about access after publication.

(D) No. This is too strong. The passage does not assume that all research findings are subject to peer review, only that those findings that have been reviewed do not contain erroneous or potentially harmful information.

(E) No. This would weaken the argument. If nonmedical reasons influence the review panels, then peer review may not “ to protect the public from making
decisions based on possibly substandard research. ”

ingeniouseerat · Answer

What is wrong with D?
Please Explain.

anje29 · Answer

D is too broad to consider . If you use negation technique on option D , it will not break the conclusion necessarily .

(D) all medical research findings are subjected to pre publication Peer review

Negated statement :  Not all  medical research findings are .......

Since medical research in question may or may not be subjected to peer review . It doesn't affect conclusion.

chesstitans · Answer

oh, not again, I just thought C is right, until i realize that the public and findings has nothing to do with findings and peer review. Too many details bump into head while reading even though I take paraphrase the whole passage!!!

Guideline to negate unless statement.
The negation of a conditional statement is NOT another conditional statement. When negating a conditional, you're really negating the relationship expressed between the two properties from the original statement. So A-->B negated becomes ~(A-->B), which can be rephrased as "A even if not B". The key to that is saying B is not really necessary, A can occur and it doesn't matter if B occurs or not. The statement "A-->~B" isn't precisely accurate, it's expressing the polar opposite of the original idea, not the logical opposite. 
As far as an "unless" statement, the trick is to change "unless" to "even if" or "if not", and negate both elements in the sentence. So "I'll kill you unless you give me $100" becomes "I might not kill you even if you don't give me $100".

Sarjaria84 · Answer

Hi  VeritasKarishma

Many Thanks for the lucid explanation.

Still not able to understand how can we negate the "Unless" statements. In the option 'A' will the negation be (using the idea from chesstitans' reply),

- Even if medical research findings are brought to peer review by a medical journal, peer review will not occur.

It seems to say that even when medical journal asks the peer group to review the research, it will not do so. This does makes the conclusion fall apart but sounds a bit weird.

Can you please help ?

Thanks
Saurabh

dave13 · Answer

Chose correct answer by POE

Medical research findings are customarily not made public prior to their publication in a medical journal that has had them reviewed by a panel of experts in a process called peer review. It is claimed that this practice delays public access to potentially beneficial information that, in extreme instances, could save lives. Yet pre publication peer review is the only way to prevent erroneous and therefore potentially harmful information from reaching a public that is ill equipped to evaluate medical claims on its own. Therefore, waiting until a medical journal has published the research findings that have passed peer review is the price that must be paid to protect the public from making decisions based on possibly substandard research.

The argument assumes that

(A) unless medical research findings are brought to peer review by a medical journal, peer review will not occur (THIS SHOULD CORRECT ANSWER THROUGH POE) SO PER REVIEW WILL NOT OCCUR IF THE RESEARCH FINDGS ARE NOT SUBMITTED FOR PEER REVIEW

(B) anyone who does not serve on a medical review panel does not have the necessary knowledge and expertise to evaluate medical research findings  ( not really , there could be people with necessary knowledge and expertise,who would work in other spheres )

(C) the general public does not have access to the medical iournals in which research findings are published  (FALSE INFO. PUBLIC HAS ACCESS, BUT ITS ACCESS IS DELAYED DUE TO PEER REVIEW)

(D) all medical research findings are subjected to pre publication Peer review  ( THIS IS TOO EXTREME. THERE COULD BE SOME MEDICAL RESEARCH FINDINGS NOT REQUIRING PEER REVIEW)

(E) peer review panels are sometimes subject to political and professional pressures that can make their judgments less than impartial  (OUT OF SCOPE. NOT CONCERNED WITH PRESSURES)

Pas4867 · Answer

I can tell right away that A is the answer here. The passage says that the peer review process of medical journals is the only way to ensure that incorrect medical information not reach the public. However, if we use negation on A we get that peer review will occur if medical research findings are not bought to peer review by the journals. This completely collapses the argument by telling us that peer review, which the passage tells us is the only method by which the incorrect information can be caught, can be done without the journals. So, A is the correct answer.

lehung978 · Answer

from reaching a public that is ill equipped to evaluate medical claims on its own

There is no indication of "some" here. Literally this spells out that the public doesn't have any clue about medical findings. Agree that answer choice B is abit extreme, but the "some" explanation definitely does not fly in this case

anshul0130 · Answer

KarishmaB  - what is the negation of option A ? is it - Unless medical research findings are brought to peer review by a medical journal, peer review will occur ?

If we replace unless with if..not then negation becomes - If medical research findings are not brought to peer review by a medical journal, peer review will occur.

Pls share your inputs.

Thank you!

KarishmaB · Answer

What will be the negation of:
"A is necessary for B to happen."

It is "A is not necessary for B to happen" i.e. B can happen even without A. The negation is not that A should not happen and only then B can happen, right? Negation of "necessary" condition is "not necessary"

Now consider this: "Unless A happens, B will not happen"
This is the same as above: "A is necessary for B to happen" or in other words "If A doesn't happen, B will not happen" (replacing 'unless' with 'if not')

What is the negation then? "B can happen even if A doesn't happen" or in other words "If A doesn't happen, B can still happen."

"unless findings are brought to peer review by a medical journal, peer review will not occur"
negation will be
If findings are not brought to peer review by a medical journal, peer review can still occur" (not "peer review must occur")

This breaks our conclusion.

unraveled · Answer

Assumption that i could think of in sequence from easier to tough ones.
1. That peer review is dependable in that sense that it is not substandard.
2. Every medical research findings are subjected to pre publication peer review
3. peer review are done by medical journal.

The third one is the least striking one and thus so difficult to choose. It was too obvious so i never thought that such an assumption is also possible. Here POE comes to our help. B is too sleek to not miss for - i too fell for it, sadly.

pearrrrrrr · Answer

Hi  TommyWallach   KarishmaB   Bunuel

(C) the general public does not have access to the medical journals in which research findings are published >> if this means PRE published. Would this be the correct answer?

Posted from my mobile device

KarishmaB · Answer

I am not sure I understand your question. We are given that medical research findings are customarily not made public prior to their publication in a medical journal in the argument.
So pre publication, public has no access to reearch findings and post publication, of course, the public has access because they are published. So (C) is not correct. The gap is that "peer review" is required to filter out harmful info, not publication in a medical journal.

pearrrrrrr · Answer

Hi  KarishmaB

Thank you so much for your answer.

"Medical research findings are customarily not made public prior to  their publication in a medical journal that has had them reviewed by a panel of experts in a process called peer review . It is claimed that this practice delays public access to potentially beneficial information that, in extreme instances, could save lives."

I was thinking that choice C means  the general public does not have access to the medical journals that are pre published for peer reviews (the same place as in the red text in the premise above). i.e. the general pulic does not have access to where the journals are published for reviews by expert. 
My thought was the author must assume that the general public does not have access to  this  so that's why they do not have potentially beneficial information that could save lives

I'm very confused.

VerbalBot · Answer

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