The proposal to extend clinical trials, which are routinely used as sy

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Competition Mode Question

The proposal to extend clinical trials, which are routinely used as systematic tests of pharmaceutical innovations, to new surgical procedures should not be implemented. The point is that surgical procedures differ in one important respect from medicinal drugs: a correctly prescribed drug depends for its effectiveness only on the drug’s composition, whereas the effectiveness of even the most appropriate surgical procedure is transparently related to the skills of the surgeon who uses it.

The reasoning in the argument is flawed because the argument

(A) does not consider that new surgical procedures might be found to be intrinsically more harmful than the best treatment previously available

(B) ignores the possibility that the challenged proposal is deliberately crude in a way designed to elicit criticism to be used in refining the proposal

(C) assumes that a surgeon’s skills remain unchanged throughout the surgeon’s professional life

(D) describes a dissimilarity without citing any scientific evidence for the existence of that dissimilarity

(E) rejects a proposal presumably advanced in good faith without acknowledging any such good faith

exc4libur · Answer

ARGUMENT
new trials with surgical procedures should not be implemented;
because its effectiveness differs from clinical trials.

Ans (A): if new surgical procedures show that these can be worse than those available, important information is gained.

madgmat2019 · Answer

(A) does not consider that new surgical procedures might be found to be intrinsically more harmful than the best treatment previously available........clearly weakens the arguments because before implementing a new method, not just saying that the existing one is not effective......we have to consider effects of the new one ......CORRECT

(B) ignores the possibility that the challenged proposal is deliberately crude in a way designed to elicit criticism to be used in refining the proposal....nothing crude is discussed here in the argument....OUT OF CONTEXT

(C) assumes that a surgeon’s skills remain unchanged throughout the surgeon’s professional life......OUT OF CONTEXT

(D) describes a dissimilarity without citing any scientific evidence for the existence of that dissimilarity.....we dont need scientific evidence in order to check the efficiency of surgeons....INCORRECT

(E) rejects a proposal presumably advanced in good faith without acknowledging any such good faith.....not the case here....out of scope

OA:A

sony1000 · Answer

IMO A is correct because the argument puts all the criticism weight on the skills of the surgeon which should not be the number one factor when introducing a new surgical procedure. The most important factor to consider on a new surgical procedure should be its risks as A mentions.

arvind910619 · Answer

I feel depressed after seeing this question. It took me more than the usual time to crack this question and still i got it wrong. I see that LSAT questions are way tougher than the normal GMAT question?
For me C was a valid answer, yet it it is wrong. Please someone guide me in CR. I have read Manhattan prep's CR guide twice still I sweat when i solve LSAT questions. The language of the CR in LSAT is very dense.

bidskamikaze · Answer

(A) does not consider that new surgical procedures might be found to be intrinsically more harmful than the best treatment previously available
-  CORRECT. The argument totally ignores the purpose and the implications of NOT implementing the proposal.

(B) ignores the possibility that the challenged proposal is deliberately crude in a way designed to elicit criticism to be used in refining the proposal
- The objection is towards the implementation of the proposal; refinement is not opposed.

(C) assumes that a surgeon’s skills remain unchanged throughout the surgeon’s professional life
-  The opposite. Argument says that different surgeons have different skills.

(D) describes a dissimilarity without citing any scientific evidence for the existence of that dissimilarity
-  Not an issue.

(E) rejects a proposal presumably advanced in good faith without acknowledging any such good faith
-  Acknowledgement of good faith isn't the issue; proposal itself is being objected to.

A is correct.

Bonojit · Answer

Hello, could anyone explain why C is wrong? The argument says - The proposal to extend clinical trials, which are routinely used as systematic tests of pharmaceutical innovations, to new surgical procedures  should not be implemented.

If I consider option A-it is strengthening the argument by citing a reason, which will be useful for not implementing the proposal- does not consider that new surgical procedures might be found to be intrinsically more  harmful  than the best treatment previously available

whereas in C- assumes that a surgeon’s skills remain  unchanged  throughout the surgeon’s professional life

My point is everyone upgrade their skills so if a surgeon upgrades his/her skills then it makes a valid reason for the proposal to be implemented and hence weakens the argument

would be really great if someone could explain this to me

MBAB123 · Answer

Bonojit , I'm no expert but see if this helps you (please excuse any typos in my response, I'm extremely tired.) 1. Firstly, the question does not ask you to strengthen or weaken the argument like you've done in your analysis. An argument could be flawed in many ways, you don't necessarily have to disprove it's conclusion. 2. Option C - The argument does not assume that surgeons do not upgrade their skills throughout their lives. That is not the point. If there is a complex new procedures and there are two surgeons that can perform the procedure on you - one is highly skilled, has years of experience, graduated from the best med school in the world, while the other surgeon will be performing his first ever procedure - you'd obviously want to go with the experiences guy, right? And obviously, their skills would differ even if they have been constantly upgrading themselves (In fact, even more so if they've been upgrading their skills). That is the point that the argument is trying to make. 3. Option A - This is correct because it points another reason for the conclusion. In essence, the argument's stimulus regarding the skills might not even come into place if the new procedures are not approved/performed (obviously, we won't approve anything that is more harmful). Hope this helps!

gasoline · Answer

Dear Bonojit

Greetings!
I took some time to mark the right option.
Let me try to explain:
The argument says that clinical trials should not be extended to  new surgical procedures .
Why so?
The argument states that unlike a drug or a vaccine, which depends on its composition, the surgical procedure depends on the skill of the surgeon and hence the procedure itself should not be put through rigorous trial.

Well, let me give you an example here.
I saw a documentary on how, a few decades ago, some doctors and scientists, in a effort to cure brain seizures, started removing parts of the human brain which were responsible for triggering seizures. In some cases, the surgery also resulted in loss of other brain functions. The surgeons ran multiple tests to identify and isolate the right brain part to remove or disconnect from the other parts of the brain.
The brain surgery is still practiced in extreme cases and is only 60-70% successful as per Wikipedia.
Unless the surgical procedure was not rigorously tested, I am sure that even a good surgeon wouldn't be sure of which part of the brain to remove or disconnect.
Now suppose that a new surgical procedure is developed which has a better success rate of 61-75%; however, if the patient develops severe side-effects or severe loss of brain functions at a later stage-not seen in case of the previous procedure- we can safely say that the new procedure was not effective in the long run and should not be preferred.
Hence, the clinical trial of surgical procedures becomes very important.

Option C : Surgeon’s skills remain unchanged throughout the surgeon’s professional life.
On the other hands talks about the skill of the doctor.
A new surgical method can be new for all surgeons equally. If the new surgical procedure under trial is itself found to be riskier or more complicated that the current procedure, the skillset of the surgeon makes no sense at all.

Thank you.

Regards

Bonojit · Answer

Thank you Brian123 and gasoline , it makes sense now

Prateek101 · Answer

The proposal to extend clinical trials, which are routinely used as systematic tests of pharmaceutical innovations, to new surgical procedures should not be implemented. The point is that surgical procedures differ in one important respect from medicinal drugs: a correctly prescribed drug depends for its effectiveness only on the drug’s composition, whereas the effectiveness of even the most appropriate surgical procedure is transparently related to the skills of the surgeon who uses it.

The reasoning in the argument is flawed because the argument

=> First thing to understand is to understand where does the flaw exist, the question asks to find the flaw in reasoning, The statement 1 is conclusion and that statement does not have any flaw, everything that comes after is reasoning. There are many ways to prove that there is flaw in reasoning - maybe there is a gap in the reasoning, maybe the reasoning is making some assumption, maybe reasoning is incorrect etc.
in this case for me I was confused between A and B, B is just a dense sentence and it took me long to remove all the modifiers to see what is the intent behind option B.

(A) does not consider that new surgical procedures might be found to be intrinsically more harmful than the best treatment previously available => the comparison provided between drug and surgery is not apple to apple comparison. Comparing a drug to surgery is not convincing argument to conclude that surgery shouldn't be implemented. Option A says that the current is worse than past and that is good enough proof to conclude that surgery shouldn't be implemented.
(B) ignores the possibility that the challenged proposal is deliberately crude in a way designed to elicit criticism to be used in refining the proposal => all this options says is Proposal is bad to evoke criticism to refine the proposal intern, very useless statement; super dense but makes zero sense. Its funny how the most non sense options could trick us into believing that there is some deep meaning behind them - INCORRECT
(C) assumes that a surgeon’s skills remain unchanged throughout the surgeon’s professional life => Wait what ?? and why ?? there is no link between the argument and this statement, the topic is not about what happens with passing time - INCORRECT
(D) describes a dissimilarity without citing any scientific evidence for the existence of that dissimilarity => Firstly why is scientific evidence necessary to prove this point, it could be just normal data from past trials, then again similar to option B, some profound thing is said and I am like WoW only to read again, waste my time and reject the option - INCORRECT
(E) rejects a proposal presumably advanced in good faith without acknowledging any such good faith => Good faith ? no such context comes in the passage - INCORRECT

VerbalBot · Answer

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The proposal to extend clinical trials, which are routinely used as sy

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The proposal to extend clinical trials, which are routinely used as sy

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