Logical Reasoning

PT130 · S3 · Q21 Doctor: Medication to reduce blood pressure

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Doctor: Medication to reduce blood pressure often has unhealthy side effects.

Conclusion

It’s healthier to rely on lifestyle changes than on medication to reduce blood pressure.

Evidence

Medication has unhealthy side effects. Lifestyle changes, meanwhile, reduce blood pressure just as much as meds do.

Evaluation

Which is healthier, meds or diet/exercise, when it comes to reducing blood pressure?

Here’s what we know: - Both of them reduce blood pressure by the same amount. - Meds often have unhealthy side effects.

So they tied on the 1st thing, and meds lost out to diet/exercise on the 2nd thing?

Doesn't that mean that diet/exercise wins, in this comparison?

Not quite. We were never told that diet/exercise is different or better when it comes to unhealthy side effects.

Goal

While the argument could be assuming there isn’t some other component of meds or diet/exercise that would make meds healthier, the correct answer will likely just be the missing part of the comparison: the side effects of diet/exercise aren’t that bad.

21.

Which one of the following is an assumption that the doctor's argument requires?

Other than medication, the only
Too Strong: only
Just because the author only mentioned these three ways doesn’t mean he’s assuming that they are the only three ways. I might want to argue that a Corolla is better than a Civic or a Maxima; in doing so, I don’t have to assume that those are the only three cars there are.
3% picked this
If it is healthier to
Illegal Reversal
When we see conditional answers, compare them to the core. Beware reversals/negations. The author’s premise to conclusion move is, “Since lifestyle reduces as much as medication does, it is healthier to rely on lifestyle”. This answer choice is a reversal of that idea.
11% picked this
Correct
The side effects, if any,
Why this is right
We know that meds have side effects, but in order to judge that as a relative disadvantage compared to diet/exercise, we need to know that diet/exercise do not have side effects that are just as bad or worse. If we negated this answer, we would get the strong objection of “The side of effects of diet/exercise are at least as bad as the side effects of meds!”
Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
75% picked this
If an alternative to medication
Too Strong: always
This general rule does seem to apply to the author’s thinking in this specific case. But how do we know whether she would apply this general rule to all cases. We know the author thinks that it is sometimes true that an equally effective alternative to medication is thus the healthier option. But she hasn’t committed herself to believing that this would always be true for any case.
11% picked this
If two different methods of
Bad Premise Match
When we see conditional answers, compare them to the core. Did the argument go from “We know that diet/exercise has similar side effects to meds (but diet/exercise is more effective), thus the healthier option is diet/exercise?” Not at all. We have no idea whether diet/exercise has similar side effects. The argument said, “If two different methods have similar effectiveness and one of them has bad side effects, then it is healthier to rely on the other method.”
1% picked this

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