With the increased importance of the country's top research

Question

With the increased importance of the country's top research universities to the development of groundbreaking new medical procedures, and the resulting financially lucrative patents, it was feared that the universities would impose strict limitations on their faculty about the sharing of research with other institutions. Aside from being antithetical to the free exchange of ideas expected in an educational setting, these limitations would have the more insidious effect of slowing the development of potentially life-saving medical technology.

Which of the following, if true, would tend to most seriously weaken the prediction of technological stagnation described above?

A)Medical research conducted by academic institutions has developed some technologies that are of major practical importance to every hospital and care facility in the country.

B)When the results of medical research are not shared, governmental institutions are unable to build on those results.

C)While it may not seem troublesome for corporate institutions to profit off of the patents on their technological developments, it is morally questionable that the same activity takes place at an academic institution, given the importance most universities put on unbiased research.

D)To enhance their standing in the medical and academic communities, and their ability to win future research grants, the universities encourage their faculty to publish their results on a regular basis in all of the standard medical journals.

E)Academic institutions often devote some of their financial and human resources to researching purely academic scientific questions, and this research is normally not expected to produce any new technologies or otherwise make money for the university.

sivatx2 · Answer

Note the pointers "it was feared" "would have" usage in the argument. It signifies that the evidence may or may not be true as per the author. So,

Premise 1: (may/may not be true with Feared usage) Lucrative patents may make faculties to not share the research with others
Fact: Antithetical to not share ideas in an educational settings
Conclusion: There is a chance of slow down in research of life saving medical technology.

To weaken the argument we need find a choice that would support that 
1) there is no slow down in research or
2) The faculties will share their research information somehow.

A)Medical research conducted by academic institutions has developed some technologies that are of major practical importance to every hospital and care facility in the country. 
 This is a repeat of the argument presented and does nothing to weaken the argument. Eliminate

B)When the results of medical research are not shared, governmental institutions are unable to build on those results. 
 This just state what are the impact of not sharing and does not weaken the argument. We need something, despite the situation, there is no slow down to research. Eliminate

C)While it may not seem troublesome for corporate institutions to profit off of the patents on their technological developments, it is morally questionable that the same activity takes place at an academic institution, given the importance most universities put on unbiased research. 
 It just restates the argument and the problem with not sharing the research information and does not weaken the argument presented. Eliminate

D)To enhance their standing in the medical and academic communities, and their ability to win future research grants, the universities encourage their faculty to publish their results on a regular basis in all of the standard medical journals. 
 This weakens the argument that research information is not shared. Since the faculty share by publishing in medical journal the research information is available for others. This is the right answer choice.

E)Academic institutions often devote some of their financial and human resources to researching purely academic scientific questions, and this research is normally not expected to produce any new technologies or otherwise make money for the university. 
 This does not weaken the argument as monetary gain/unproductive new tech, is irrelevant to the argument. Eliminate

SohGMAT2020 · Answer

With the increased importance of the country's top research universities to the development of groundbreaking new medical procedures, and the resulting financially lucrative patents, it was feared that the universities would i mpose strict limitations on their faculty about the sharing of research with other institutions . Aside from being antithetical to the free exchange of ideas expected in an educational setting,  these limitations would have the more insidious effect of slowing the development of potentially life-saving medical technology.

Ok so basically we have to weaken the fact that limitation on sharing research with other institution will have insidious effects. Lets attack the answer choice to see which one does that.

Which of the following, if true, would tend to most seriously weaken the prediction of technological stagnation described above?

A)Medical research conducted by academic institutions has developed some technologies that are of major practical importance to every hospital and care facility in the country. Ok but we don't get any new information on whether the limitations will have a harmful effect. - Eliminate ( Irrelevant)

B)When the results of medical research are not shared, governmental institutions are unable to build on those results. - This is kind of strengthening not weakening. But one thing to note is that the argument says that research is not shared with other institutions ( and not Government). Either way there is not chance that this option will weaken the argument. Eliminate B

C)While it may not seem troublesome for corporate institutions to profit off of the patents on their technological developments, it is morally questionable that the same activity takes place at an academic institution, given the importance most universities put on unbiased research. Irrelevant as as it adds not new information to the question posed. Eliminate C

D)To enhance their standing in the medical and academic communities, and their ability to win future research grants, the universities encourage their faculty to publish their results on a regular basis in all of the standard medical journals. If the universities regularly publish their results, then not sharing the data with other institutions will not have a detrimental effect as the research will be published anyway. Correct

E)Academic institutions often devote  some  of their financial and human resources to researching purely academic scientific questions, and this research is normally not expected to produce any new technologies or otherwise make money for the university. Ok some is a red flag here. We don't know how much money is allocated there . As well what about the other research that produce useful data. What will be the effect if those data are not shared ? We don't know the answer from this option . Hence eliminate E

IMO D is correct

Kinshook · Answer

With the increased importance of the country's top research universities to the development of groundbreaking new medical procedures, and the resulting financially lucrative patents, it was feared that the universities would impose strict limitations on their faculty about the sharing of research with other institutions. Aside from being antithetical to the free exchange of ideas expected in an educational setting, these limitations would have the more insidious effect of slowing the development of potentially life-saving medical technology.

Which of the following, if true, would tend to most seriously weaken the prediction of technological stagnation described above?

A)Medical research conducted by academic institutions has developed some technologies that are of major practical importance to every hospital and care facility in the country. 
This statement does not weaken the prediction of technological stagnation described above. Incorrect

B)When the results of medical research are not shared, governmental institutions are unable to build on those results. 
This statement strengthens the prediction of technological stagnation described above. Incorrect

C)While it may not seem troublesome for corporate institutions to profit off of the patents on their technological developments, it is morally questionable that the same activity takes place at an academic institution, given the importance most universities put on unbiased research. 
This statement does not weaken the prediction of technological stagnation described above. Incorrect

D)To enhance their standing in the medical and academic communities, and their ability to win future research grants, the universities encourage their faculty to publish their results on a regular basis in all of the standard medical journals. 
This statement weakens the prediction of technological stagnation described above since it provides the reasons why institutions will share their research with other institutions despite having patents. Correct

E)Academic institutions often devote some of their financial and human resources to researching purely academic scientific questions, and this research is normally not expected to produce any new technologies or otherwise make money for the university. 
This statement does not weaken the prediction of technological stagnation described above. Incorrect

IMO D

AndrewN · Answer

I came across this question yesterday and was the first person to take the timer. I am attaching proof below in the form of the timestamp: if anyone wants to claim to have an earlier one, I would like to see the timestamp. (And if you think I have the technical know-how to alter digital images to such an extent, think again.)

Attachment:

Screen Shot 2021-09-29 at 12.20.51.png [ 105.94 KiB | Viewed 2132 times ]

The reason I am writing today is that I scoffed when I saw the tag "Sub-500 Level." The language of the passage and the length of the answer choices would prove challenging for many test-takers; I predicted that with more timer data, the difficulty would kick up to 700-level. For instance, look at words such as "lucrative," "antithetical," and "insidious." Ask most Americans what these words mean, and perhaps "lucrative" would get the most accurate answer, since it pertains to money. A lot of vocabulary mavens would miss the subtleties of "insidious." I imagine the hit rate would be even lower for second-language learners of English.

But the reason I wanted to post on the question is not to rant. Rather, I wanted to make the point that despite the use of such language, we can still rely on fundamentals to arrive at an accurate conclusion. How? We can first identify that this is a weaken question: the word is used in the question stem. So, what are we trying to weaken? Again, the question stem provides the answer in readily understandable English: the prediction. Okay, so far, so good. Sure, we then get the challenging word "stagnation," but on its heels, we see described above. Thus, we can deduce that we just need to put a finger on the nature of the prediction described in the passage. And look at the language that we uncover:

Quote:

With the increased importance of the country's top research universities to the development of groundbreaking new medical procedures, and the resulting financially lucrative patents, it was feared that the universities would impose strict limitations on their faculty about the sharing of research with other institutions. Aside from being antithetical to the free exchange of ideas expected in an educational setting, these limitations would have the more insidious effect of slowing the development of potentially life-saving medical technology.

No matter how we look at it, we get numerous clues that the prediction is dire. Otherwise, why would anybody fear a certain outcome? Why are the limitations described as strict? How could hampering the development of potentially life-saving medical technology be considered positive? If we are going to weaken the prediction, then, we need to search for something positive.

Quote:

A)Medical research conducted by academic institutions has developed some technologies that are of major practical importance to every hospital and care facility in the country.

This can look like a plus to the uninitiated, but vague, unqualified language such as some has a poor track record in strengthen/weaken questions. To put it plainly, if I say that some helpful technology has been developed under certain circumstances, then what about some other technology (or those other cases when R & D led to a dead end)? This information will not weaken the prediction.

Quote:

B)When the results of medical research are not shared, governmental institutions are unable to build on those results.

Hmm... there is a decidedly negative bent here. Remember, to reverse a negative, we want to see a positive. We already know from the passage what can happen when a negative condition plays out.

Quote:

C)While it may not seem troublesome for corporate institutions to profit off of the patents on their technological developments, it is morally questionable that the same activity takes place at an academic institution, given the importance most universities put on unbiased research.

As lengthy as this answer choice is, it presents nothing more than another negative: something may masquerade as less troublesome than it is. Sounds "insidious" to me.

Quote:

D)To enhance their standing in the medical and academic communities, and their ability to win future research grants, the universities encourage their faculty to publish their results on a regular basis in all of the standard medical journals.

Notice that the language here is entirely positive: "enhance," "win," "encourage." Even without fully grasping the prediction from the passage, we know we have struck the right note here. Leave this one alone.

Quote:

E)Academic institutions often devote some of their financial and human resources to researching purely academic scientific questions, and this research is normally not expected to produce any new technologies or otherwise make money for the university.

These "purely academic" pursuits sound kind of negative, right, not to mention the presence of the same unqualified "some" that we saw earlier. It bears repeating: we cannot weaken such a negative prediction by adding more fuel to the fire. Get rid of this answer choice.

There we have it. Despite a few obstacles, we can confidently get behind the correct answer. We do not need to follow every word. We just need to stick to the basics of CR.

Good luck with your studies, everyone.

- Andrew

With the increased importance of the country's top research

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With the increased importance of the country's top research

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615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

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