LR Question 20 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Medical reporter: Studies have consistently found that…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning
CONCLUSION: Most people in industrialized countries would be healthier if they took an aspirin a day.
REASONING: Aspirin prevents heart disease. Heart disease is the most common disease in industrialized countries.
ANALYSIS: This sounds persuasive. But ‘most common’ is a relative term. It compares heart disease to other diseases. A disease can be the ‘most common’ without necessarily being ‘common’.
That could mean, for example, that heart disease affected 2% of people. Cancer could be the second most common, affecting 1% of people. Both diseases are far from affecting ‘most’ (51%) people.
In that case, it would be pointless for most people to take aspirin to prevent heart disease.
It’s important to note that the evidence was about heart attacks, and the conclusion was about health. The answer didn’t make note of this difference, but other questions do test your ability to realize that health is broader than heart attacks.
___________
- Actually, the first sentence says aspirin can prevent heart disease, too.
- CORRECT. Heart disease might only affect 2% of people in industrialized countries. In that case, most people wouldn’t be at risk and they wouldn’t need aspirin.
- It doesn’t matter if aspirin helps with other diseases. It just has to not make them worse.
- Who cares if aspirin is not the best solution? It just has to be helpful.
- The conclusion is only about people in industrialized nations. So it’s fine that the studies only looked at people in those countries.
More Resources for Flaw Questions
- Flaw drills: Use these to practice making examples of abstract flaws.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Flaw questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers flaw questions.
Hi Tatiana,
You’re on the right track here! With these questions, it’s important to keep in mind the argument’s conclusion.
In this case, the argument concludes that MOST people in industrialized countries would be healthier if they took aspirin (not only most sick people, or most people with heart disease.)
(C) doesn’t really get at the argument’s reasoning or conclusion. If incidents of heart disease or severity of heart disease is reduced, and that reduction has no effect on other common diseases, it just means that taking aspirin might not affect the rates of other diseases. This doesn’t really affect the argument at all.
(B) gets at the issue. For the argument to make sense, MOST people in a given industrialized country will need to be affected by heart disease. But the argument overlooks the possibility that this is not the case, and it is vulnerable to criticism on these grounds.
Hope that helps!
Hello, Graeme!
Thank you for your explanation! It’s awesome to have someone who wants to help all of us, studying for this beast of a test! I just have one question about answer C. Now, as I read it, I believe I’m starting to understand why it is incorrect, but not fully. At first, I thought it might be correct because of the fact that reducing the other most common diseases might make most people healthier. However, I guess this can still be related to your explanation about “most” being a relative term (2%, 1%, etc.). So, now I guess I am starting to figuring it out while writing my question. Oh well, I am going to submit it, anyway!
Thank you