Logical Reasoning

PT118 · S4 · Q9 Public health expert: Until recently

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Public health expert: Until recently people believed that applications of biochemical research would eventually achieve complete victory over the microorganisms that cause human disease.

Conclusion (therefore)

The most rational public health strategy would more emphasize the goal of fully informing people about the transmission of diseases caused by microorganisms.

Evidence

Current medical research shows that these microorganisms reproduce so quickly that medicines designed to kill one leads to an evolved mutant version that is immune to that medicine.

Evaluate

When we read Main Conclusion and Role, we know that the main conclusion is the final claim only about 10-15% of the time. Usually, the conclusion is found in the First Sentence or attached to some Pivot/Rebuttal moment in the middle.

This first sentence is ineligible to be the conclusion because it's definitely not an opinion coming from the author. It's just a past tense fact about what people have believed until recently.

The magical Pivot happens to introduce the 2nd sentence, but it too is not an opinion coming from the author. It's factually reporting what current medical research has discovered.

So we're left with the final claim, which happens to be adorned with a Conclusion indicator, "therefore". We might worry that this is just an Intermediate Conclusion, because we're used to trickery on Main Conclusion questions, but this is the only opinion from the author in the paragraph.

She is making a recommendation about what the most rational public health strategy would be. And it's supported by the 2nd sentence.

Goal

Let's find a meaning-match for the final sentence.

Of the following, which one most accurately expresses the conclusion drawn by the public health expert?

A medicine that kills one
Premise
This matches the 2nd sentence which is a factual premise.
11% picked this
A patient who contracts a
Unstated
This claim looks nothing like the final sentence, and it's saying a brand new idea, so it's unlikely to be the conclusion.
3% picked this
Correct
There is good reason to
Why this is right
This also does not bear any resemblance to the last sentence, other than the words "public health policy". This is an unstated idea, so it's not likely to be the conclusion. But it is something the author clearly believes. On a first pass, we should eliminate this as an Unstated Necessary Assumption, or as "some other position we can infer the author holds". It certainly is not at all tempting until we run out of options. Once we see that no other answer comes close to paraphrasing the final sentence, we're left with this incredibly atypical correct answer. The author's final sentence is saying, "a better (more rational) public health strategy exists, in which we place more emphasis on informing people about minimizing transmission of certain diseases". So the author definitely thinks that there is good reason to make the particular change of shifting this emphasis. Why LSAC chose to call this unstated, vague restatement of the author's argument "the conclusion", is a mystery to us all. But it's a reminder that we're always hunting for best available, not necessarily "correct".
Skill tested: Main Conclusion · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
72% picked this
No one who is fully
Unstated / Extreme: no one will ever
This claim looks nothing like the final sentence, and it's saying a brand new idea, so it can't be the conclusion. And that brand new idea happens to be an insanely extreme claim that totally goes against common sense.
3% picked this
Some previous approaches to public
Out of Scope
Out of Scope: ignored Unrelated to Goal This doesn't sound anything like the final sentence, which is advocating a new public health strategy. This would be a premise for that idea. Why should we switch to a new public health strategy? because, the previous approach didn't take into account how the rapid reproduction rate of microorganisms leads to variants that are immune to our medicines.
11% picked this

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