Ethicist: In general it is wrong to use medical treatments and procedu

[quote=ysr]can someone explain how the incorrect answer choices were eliminated ? [/quote]

(1)in general it is wrong to use experimental medical treatments/procedures w/out patient's consent.
(2) knowledge of best treatment for mergency conditions can be gained only if consent to experimental procedures is bypassed in medical emergencies.

conclusion - some nonconsensual medical research should be allowed.


(A) is implied. in (2) it is implied that the doctors dont already know the best treatment. this is basically a restatement of one of the premises, not an assumption.

(B) this is not claimed. and it is not required to reach the conclusion.

(C) this is not claimed. the argument is saying that consent should be bypassed so that more information can be gained regarding best course of action in emergencies.

(D) mis-stating the overall argument. the argument is about in cases that are emergencies, not cases that the best treatment option is unknown.

(E) correct, in taking (1) and (2) and reaching the conclusion, it's indicating that gaining knowledge is more important in certain situations.

A, B and C are irrelevant. They aren't assumptions.

D talks about unknown treatments - out of scope

E is the answer.

Confusing options but E stands out and supports the conclusion very well.

C is somewhat tempting but E is the strongest one

was tempted by C but assumption is

To get knowledge of the best treatment, some restricted nonconsensual studies should be allowed

it is different from C

E is the only option which directly attacks the conclusion when negated!

Pre -thinking - Conclusion - Non-consensual research should be allowed.
Argument 1 - In emergency situation, the knowledge of best treatments can be gained if consent is bypassed.

Assumption - Gaining knowledge of the method is more important than having a consent in some situations

A) negating first statement - Doctors may know what is important for their patients - It doesnt shatter the conclusion.
B) negating this statement - If pateints
C) Only word implies that other cases of non-consensual research shouldnt be allowed which may not be true.
D) Extreme option
E) Negating this statement - Gaining knowledge is not important than consent. Then, non- consensual research should never be allowed. This is a required assumption.

Please let me know if this is alright!

Let's tackle option B.



The passage states that if the patients knew about the experimental nature of the treatments, they could have accepted or rejected the treatment, not that their exposure to this information would have corrupted the experimental data in any sort of way.

It's a very fine line of distinction but we have to be extremely literal when we are solving CR questions

Only option E captures the essence of the argument completely.

A doctors often don't know about the out comes of the experiement is outrageously balant in simpler words doctors might know the outcomes howecer they might just don't know about the degree of scucess

B it states that the knowledge of the experiment to the patients would adversly affect first of all gmat doesn't support strong language and moreover it should be noted that adversly can affect both positively and negatively so we are not sure about the same

C may be some experiemnts had lower yield or only litte impact therefore the degree of outcome of the experiement isn't the main concern here whether the patients should be made aware of the same

D Here again it explicitly states that the patients rights are put to the wind and they are inconsequenseal which is unacceptable

E this atates the real reason behind the not informing the patients since there are traditional route for solving a case they are using experiemental ways of solving the same which is acceptable

Hence IMO E
Hope it helps

Hi guys! Hope y'all are doing well.

Very interesting question with lots of layers of logic. So pay more emphasis on understanding passages and understanding the role of each statement and how each statement connects with others. Let's be methodological and solve this question step by step.

I am going to start with reading the question stem first because the passage is long and I want to orient myself before I want to dive in deep. The question asks us to find an assumption that is necessary for the argument to stand.

The strategy should be to find an answer choice that:
1 - is a MUST BE TRUE for the argument to hold.
2 - presents a NEW piece of information.

Understand the passage:

Statement 1 sets the context. It means patients have a right to say yes or no to a procedure that is experimental in nature. It is WRONG to proceed without CONSENT.
Statement 2 is evidence of the author's conclusion. This statement says: in medical emergencies, the knowledge of what is best comes from the experimentation and that experimentation can ONLY happen if you bypass the CONSENT. Here knowledge of best in my opinion means knowledge of what works and what does not.
Statement 3 is the conclusion. Hence we should allow some restricted NONCONSENSUAL medical research.

Let us know connect and simplify the argument:

All in all the passage says some restricted NONCONSENSUAL medical research should be allowed because it is necessary to gain knowledge that could help determine the best course of treatment in medical emergencies.

This is the most important step of analyzing any CR argument IMO.

Let us think a bit about what could be possible assumptions:

Why one should not allow the restricted NONCONSENSUAL medical research given that it is necessary to gain knowledge that could help determine the best course of treatment in medical emergencies?

The knowledge gained from such medical research cannot be gained through other options. If knowledge could be gained from the other sources, should one then even need to break the rules?

So the assumption is knowledge gained from such research is better (marginally or significantly; does not matter) than the knowledge gained from the other sources.

I was not able to pre-think many assumptions here since my thinking is not that broad. If I were in the exam, I would still be confident moving to answer choices because my understanding is sufficient. Now let us evaluate the answer choices.

Focus on eliminating the definitely wrong ones.

Choice A:
Let us understand what this means. If doctors often do not know what is best for their patients, does it necessarily warrant the need for NONCONSENSUAL medical research? What if for a given patient in a medical emergency a doctor lacks some experience which he can gain by discussing with other doctors. But still, negate this and see if the conclusion breaks.
Doctors often know what is best for their patients in emergency situations. Again this does mean we should not encourage the NONCONSENSUAL medical research? No. Choice A is not a must be true. This definitely strengthens the conclsuion.

Choice B:
This is tempting. This choice says if patients know that experimental research is being carried out, then results are adversely affected.
Please note the focus of the conclusion and passage is CONSENT vs NON-CONSENT.
What this choice implies is that if patients know that they are under experimental research (most likely they have CONSENTED), then the results of the research are flawed. This choice DOES NOT guarantee that if they do not know they are under such research (most likely NON-CONSENSUAL), then the results are not flawed.
Basically, If A then B, does not mean If not A then not B. Hence do not over-infer from this choice.

Choice C:
This is not a MUST BE TRUE. Let us negate.
Even if the research does not yield the results that benefit the patients, doctors would still be equipped with a piece of information that will prevent them from using this treatment in future cases. This is eventually useful. Negation supports the conclusion.

Choice D:
This is out of scope, it talks about what happens when treatment is unknown. We are focused on finding the (best) treatments when they are unknown.

Choice E:
This implies that NON-CONSENSUAL is sometimes better than CONSENSUAL research. And this is the missing piece we are looking for.
Let us negate this NON-CONSENSUAL is NEVER better than CONSENSUAL research. This breaks the conclusion.

[quote="raghavakumar85"]A, B and C are irrelevant. They aren't assumptions.

D talks about unknown treatments - out of scope

E is the answer.[/quote]

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Keywords - In general, because, but, only if, so, some.
Here the conclusion starts with but and its reasoning is given after only if.
A. Doctor knowing or not knowing the best in emergency situation does not help at all. Not touching the conclusion's reasoning at all.
B. First of all, it's a conditional which does not make sense in the context that the passage discusses a generic thing. Logic wise as well its not affecting the conclusion.
C. Irrelevant. Goes offtrack.
D. Like C, this is also not true. Considers only a smaller scope as against passage.
E. The language helps in this case more than the content/context. In some case it can be possible that patients' consent is outweighed.

Answer E.

E is the correct answer
A,b are irrelevant.
C is out of scope
E given particular content nd context.,
That is why is correct answer choice

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