Logical Reasoning

PT123 · S2 · Q15 A new government policy

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A new government policy has been developed to avoid many serious cases of influenza.

Conclusion (so)

Every year it will be necessary for all high-risk individuals to receive a vaccine for a different strain of the virus.

Evidence

Each year’s vaccination will protect only against the strain of the influenza virus deemed most likely to be prevalent that year.

Evaluate

The argument concludes that each year high risk individuals will need to get a new vaccine. Why would that be the case? Because the vaccine will only protect against that year's most prevalent strain.

We could predict a Missing Link like, . But that would be an atypical answer (i.e. one that just says .

Since it doesn't seem like we're being tested on a Missing Link, we could go into Anti-Conclusion mode (which is very rare for Sufficient Assumption).

Given that ... each year's vaccine only protects against the most prevalent strain that year

How could one argue ... that you don't need to get a vaccine for a different strain each year?

What if the strain you got the vaccine for last year is still the most prevalent strain this year? You wouldn't need a new vaccine in that case.

Goal

When we think of a potential objection to the argument on Sufficient Assumption, then the correct answer needs to rule out that possible objection.

We need to know that it's never the case that .

15.

Which one of the following is an assumption that would allow the conclusion above to be properly drawn?

  1. The number of individuals in

    Irrelevant Comparison

    The number of individuals in the high-risk group does not impact whether those individuals will need to receive a vaccine.

    3% picked this

  2. The likelihood that a serious

    Weakens (if anything)

    This makes it possible that one year there is no risk of influenza and so high-risk individuals may not need to receive a vaccine that year.

    3% picked this

  3. No vaccine for the influenza

    Reiterates Premise / No Impact

    This tells us something we already know. We were told that "Each year’s vaccination will protect only against the strain of the influenza virus deemed most likely to be prevalent that year", so we already know that the vaccine only protects against one strain. This doesn't resolve our concern that if the same strain is the most prevalent for two consecutive years, then a high-risk patient wouldn't necessarily need to get a new vaccine each year.

    29% picked this

  4. Correct

    Each year the strain of

    Why this is right

    This ensures that each year the strain of influenza virus deemed most likely to be prevalent is one that has not been vaccinated against previously.

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

    63% picked this

  5. Each year’s vaccine will have

    Out of Scope

    Side effects are not relevant to this argument.

    1% picked this

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