The number of hospital emergency room

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct73% picked this

   Widespread use of automatic weapons in the drug trade during the 1980s raised the incidence of physical

   Why this is right

   This explains the ER-visit increase without supporting the conclusion. If automatic weapons in the drug trade became widespread in the 1980s, heroin users would be physically injured more often — gunshot wounds, drug-trade violence — leading to more ER trips. That accounts for the 25% rise in ER visits without needing the heroin-using population (or heroin use itself) to have grown. The same number of users could have ended up in the ER more frequently because of injuries from a more dangerous drug-trade environment.

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

   73%
2. B

   No Impact4% picked this

   The introduction of a smokable type of heroin during the 1980s removed the need for heroin to be injected intravenously and thus

   A smokable type of heroin reducing infection risk would, if anything, predict fewer ER visits per user (less infection-driven trips), not more. So this doesn't account for the 25% increase in ER visits at all. It also doesn't support an alternative explanation for the rise — it just describes a development that goes the wrong way.

   4%
3. C

   Restates Paradox3% picked this

   Many hospital emergency rooms were barely able to accommodate the dramatic increase in the number of medical emergencies related to

   This says ERs were strained by drug-related emergencies — basically restating that visits went up. It doesn't explain why the increase happened or offer an alternative to "more heroin use." The increase itself is the thing we're trying to account for, not a fact that helps account for it.

   3%
4. D

   Premise Support2% picked this

   Heroin use increased much more than is reflected in the rate of heroin-linked hospital

   This says heroin use rose even more than ER visits suggest. That actively supports the author's conclusion that heroin use rose — the opposite of what we want. We need an answer that accounts for the ER-visit rise without supporting the conclusion. This does the opposite.

   2%
5. E

   No Impact19% picked this

   Viral and bacterial infections, malnourishment, and overdoses account for most hospital emergency room visits

   This tells us what kinds of conditions account for most heroin-related ER visits (infections, malnourishment, overdoses). That's background about which medical issues drive the visits, but it doesn't say whether those conditions became more frequent in the 1980s. Without that, it can't explain the rise — and it doesn't offer an alternative to "more heroin use."

   19%