Logical Reasoning

PT153 · S3 · Q6 The best way to increase the blood supply

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The best way to increase the blood supply in the city of Pulaski is to encourage more donations by people who are regular blood donors.

Conclusion

The best way to increase blood supply in the city of Pulaski is to encourage more donations by people who are regular blood donors.

Evidence

A study in two other cities showed that it's hard and costly to attract 1st time blood donors, and sporadic donors are often unwilling to increase their frequency. But these cities had a lot of success convincing regular donors to increase their donation frequency.

Evaluate

Since this is a Plan / Recommendation, we want to think about our usual skeptical questions for Plans:

- It is feasible? Are there enough regular blood donors (and could they give blood frequently enough) that it would actually substantially increase Pulaski's blood supply?

- Are people motivated / incentivized to go along with the plan? Will regular blood donors in Pulaski agree to such a thing or is there some reason why they might resist this plan of giving more frequently?

- Could it backfire in some way? Is there any chance that the regular donors resent being asked for even more donations and start giving less frequently.

The argument is also built on Evidence that involves a Comparison / Analogy, so we could potentially fight the logic by saying that Pulaski is not fair to compare to Moorestown / Fredricksburg, when it comes to this blood donation stuff.

Goal

Let's look for an answer that helps us argue that Pulaski's best option of increasing blood supply is not to encourage more donations by people who are regular donors, either by arguing that Plan wouldn't work, a better plan exists, or the comparison to these other two cities is dubious.

6.

Which one of the following, if true, would do most to undermine the conclusion of the argument above?

  1. Increasing blood donation by regular

    Strengthens

    This makes it seem like following the plan suggested by the author could result in a big increase in blood supply. This would strengthen the argument.

    0% picked this

  2. The pool of potential blood

    Strengthens

    It would have been an objection to point out a meaningful difference like, "This plan is unlikely to work in Pulaski. Sure, it worked in town M and town F, but that's because those two towns have a lot of regular donors. Town P doesn't have as many regular donors, so even if town P got more of them to donate more frequently it wouldn't amount to much." But this answer says the opposite. Pulaski is even more ripe of a contender for this plan, given that they have an even higher percentage of frequent donors.

    5% picked this

  3. A follow-up study in Moorestown

    Strengthens

    This rules out a backfire objection, so it strengthens a bit. We might have tried arguing that this Plan is bad, because even though it might increase donations in the short term, in the long term it exhausts the good will (and blood supply) of the regular donors, who then stop donating altogether, leaving the blood bank worse off than when it started. But this answer says the opposite of that -- long-term frequency of donation among the regulars did not decrease; it remained higher than before.

    1% picked this

  4. In the city of Pulaski,

    Mildly Weakens

    This goes against the plan a bit, since it tells us that there way more sporadic donors than regular donors. However, the evidence told us that sporadic donors can be a lost cause when it comes to requesting more-frequent donations, so in that sense it doesn't matter how many of them there are. But still, this does weaken a bit. If there are way more sporadic donors, then they are potentially a more important group to target. However, when we compare the weakening effect of (D) to (E), the latter is much stronger. (D) creates some doubt about whether this plan would be the best by making us wonder whether we should target sporadic donors instead. (E) lets us know that this plan would not be the best, because it's impossible to do it without medically endangering the blood donors.

    10% picked this

  5. Correct

    Almost all of the regular

    Why this is right

    This attacks the feasibility of the plan by saying Pulaski just straight up can't do the plan. The regular donors are giving as much blood as is medically safe. We can't ask them to give even more blood.

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

    84% picked this

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