Logical Reasoning

PT151 · S2 · Q9 Last year, pharmaceutical manufacturers significantly

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Last year, pharmaceutical manufacturers significantly increased the amount of money they spent promoting new drugs, which they do mainly by sending sales representatives to visit physicians in their offices.

Conclusion (So)

The additional promotional money must have been counterproductive, making physicians less willing to receive visits by pharmaceutical sales reps.

Evidence

Last year, Big Pharm spent additional money to promote its new drugs.

The primary way it promotes is by sending sales reps to visit physicians in their offices.

Two years ago, there was an average of 640 visits per per. Last year, each rep made an average of 501 visits.

Evaluate

Since the evidence is a Curious Comparison, , and since the conclusion is saying something Causal, , we could use our typical Explain Curious Fact mindset.

Curious Fact ... why did representatives went from making 640 visits per year to making only 501 visits per year?

Author's Explanation ... the reps were coming with more promotional energy behind them, they somehow annoyed physicians or changed physicians' behavior in such a way that the physicians started shutting down offers to be visited.

Often, when we're dealing with Explain Curious Fact arguments, we have to really take our time with the author's explanation and spell out the assumed stages of her causal storyline. She seems to be thinking that with extra promotional money behind them, the sales reps did something extra early on in last year that turned off the physicians. The physicians were like, "Okay, this is too much" and told their receptionists not to schedule any more visits with these annoying sales reps.

Goal

Since this is Weaken, we would want to either

1. suggest an Alternate Explanation for the curious fact how else could we explain why it went 640 visits per year to 501 visits per year?

2. undermine the plausibility of the Author's Explanation how could we make it seem like it was not the case that sales reps were too "extra" in the beginning, which turned off physicians and led them to shutdown hosting future visits from sales reps?

Which one of the following, if true, most weakens the argument?

Correct
Most pharmaceutical manufacturers increased the
Why this is right
This offers an Alternate Explanation for the curious fact. It didn't go from 640 to 501 visits per year because doctors were no longer accepting visits. It decreased because the pharmaceutical companies decided they wanted sales reps to spend more time with each physician. 640 visits @ 1 hr / visit = 640 hours of promotion 501 visits @ 2 hr / visit = 1002 hours of promotion They spent their increased promotional budget on hiring more sales reps, so that they could have long afternoon walks with physicians, or take them to the opera or a WNBA game. This suggests an alternate explanation for why the visits per rep went from 640 to 501. It also reconciles some cognitive dissonance we may have had about how these companies could be spending more money on sales reps even while there are fewer visits per sales rep (the solution to that paradox is, "What if there are more sales reps than before!")
Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
77% picked this
Physicians who receive visits from
No Impact
This explains part of the incentive behind why a physician would ever say, "Yes, sales rep, you can visit my office". But this is a timeless answer, meaning it makes no distinction between timeframes. It doesn't speak at all to last year vs. two years ago. It has no power to help assess this 640 to 501 change that has occurred, because it was equally true in both situations.
2% picked this
Most pharmaceutical companies did not
Strengthens
This rules out and Alternate Explanation for the curious fact, so it strengthens. We might have said, "The site visits per representative didn't go down because physicians started refusing visits. It went down because the pharmaceutical companies decided to spend their promotional dollars a different way — advertising targeted directly at consumers."
3% picked this
Most physicians who agree to
No Impact
This is a timeless answer, meaning it makes no distinction between timeframes. It doesn't speak at all to last year vs. two years ago. It has no power to help assess this 640 to 501 change that has occurred, because what it's talking about would be true in both of those years. This answer isn't indicating that there was any difference in the rate of multiple visits or willingness to have multiple visits per year.
12% picked this
The more visits a physician
No Impact
This explains part of the incentive behind why a sales rep wants to visit a physician. But this is a timeless answer, meaning it makes no distinction between timeframes. It doesn't speak at all to last year vs. two years ago. It has no power to help assess this 640 to 501 change that has occurred, because it was equally true in both situations.
5% picked this

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