The proposal to extend clinical trials

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct42% picked this

   does not consider that new surgical procedures might be found to be intrinsically more harmful than the

   Why this is right

   This nails the gap. The author's argument focuses entirely on whether trials can measure surgical effectiveness. But trials also reveal whether a new procedure is intrinsically more harmful than the best existing alternative — and that's a critical safety reason to run trials, regardless of surgeon-skill variation. The author hasn't considered this purpose, so the argument against trials is incomplete.

   Skill tested: Flaw · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   42%
2. B

   Bad Objection10% picked this

   ignores the possibility that the challenged proposal is deliberately crude in a way designed to elicit criticism to be

   This complains that the proposal might be deliberately crude to invite refinement. Even if true, that wouldn't weaken the author's argument — it's a meta-claim about the proposal's design, not about whether the author's reasoning supports rejecting it. A real flaw answer should expose a defect in the author's logic.

   10%
3. C

   Bad Assumption19% picked this

   assumes that a surgeon’s skills remain unchanged throughout the surgeon’s

   This says the argument assumes surgeon skills don't change over a career. The argument doesn't need that assumption — the argument just needs surgeon-skill variation to exist (which it does, even within a single career). Skill changing over time doesn't undermine the author's premise that effectiveness depends on skill.

   19%
4. D

   Bad Description19% picked this

   describes a dissimilarity without citing any scientific evidence for the existence

   This says the argument describes a dissimilarity without scientific evidence. But "drug effectiveness depends on composition; surgery effectiveness depends on surgeon skill" is a reasonable observation that doesn't require scientific citations to be plausible. The flaw isn't lack of citations — it's the overlooked alternative purpose of trials.

   19%
5. E

   Bad Description9% picked this

   rejects a proposal presumably advanced in good faith without acknowledging any

   This says the author rejects a proposal without acknowledging good faith. That's a tone-policing complaint, not a logical flaw in the argument. Failing to credit the proposers' intentions doesn't make the reasoning flawed; the actual flaw is overlooking harm-detection as a purpose for trials.

   9%