Quote:
Psychiatric research has shown that receiving high-quality outpatient care, rather than being confined to an institution, produces the best quality of life for people who are mentally ill. Responding to this research, Congress in 1963 passed a law that released 95% of the mentally ill patients who had been confined to institutions. In 1983, however, researchers discovered that, on average, mentally ill people in America were faring worse than ever.
Which if the following, if true, best resolves the paradox in the above passage?
A) More people were diagnosed with psychiatric disorders in 1983 than in 1963.
B) In 1983 men who had been released from mental institutions fared worse that did their female counterparts.
C) A number of psychiatric medications were discovered between 1963 and 1983, including some early antidepressants.
D) Congress never supplied the funding that would have been necessary to provide high-quality outpatient care to the newly-released patients.
E) Most of the released patients who were doing badly in 1983 suffered from one of three mental illnesses.
Now here the paradox /contradiction is that the research expected that high-quality outpatient care will improve the life of the mentally ill people however when implemented the results in 1983 talks about a worse situation. Now in order to solve this paradox, we need to give a plausible reason as why this paradox occurs.
Option A: It talks about the increase in the number of patients and not their conditions as mentioned in the conclusion.(X Eliminate).
Option B: Gender specific bias does not solve the problem. (X Eliminate)
Option C: If true, it should it should have solved the problem and not worsen it. ( X Eliminate ) as the paradox still exists.
Option D: Give an explanation to the paradox. If we put this information as a counter-premise in the argument, it will solve the contradiction. ( KEEP)
Option E: If true, the contradiction still exists.
Hence answer should be "D"