PrepTest 115, Section 2, Question 22
The relaxation of regulations governing the manufacture and(75 more words not shown)
The statement that a large(20 more words not shown)
- Aa reason for(11 more words not shown)
- Bevidence for a(10 more words not shown)
- Can illustration of(12 more words not shown)
- Da link between(12 more words not shown)
- Esupport for the(16 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The opening gives us the goal: increase the availability of new medicines. Relaxing some rules might help with that. But why stop there? If the author wants to keep restrictions on industry generally, I want to know what those restrictions protect that matters to this plan.
The answer comes in two steps. Without strict environmental rules, endangered plants and animals will disappear. And many new medicines come from plants and animals. Now the connection makes sense: lifting environmental protections could destroy sources of the very medicines we're trying to make more available.
What we’re looking for
We're asked about the role of the fact that a large majority of new medicines come from plants and animals. Follow what that fact does. Extinction alone would give us a concern about species; the medicine connection turns it into a concern about drug availability. That supports the warning about the plan backfiring, which in turn supports the opening recommendation to keep the broader regulations.
Working the answers
- A
The argument doesn't recommend lifting restrictions on research into plants and animals. It discusses rules governing the manufacture and sale of medicines, then warns against extending deregulation across industry. A changes the policy the evidence is being used to support.
- B
The author accepts this fact and uses it to support the warning about broad deregulation. It is not evidence offered on behalf of an opposing view. Ask which side benefits from the fact: the connection to medicines gives us a reason to preserve the environmental protections the author wants to keep.
- C
This gets both the cause and the form of support wrong. The concern is what could happen if environmental regulations were removed, not a disaster caused by keeping too many regulations. And the statement gives a general fact about sources of medicines, not a particular example of a disaster.
- DCorrect
This supplies the link between losing species and potentially losing new medicines. If plants and animals provide most new medicines, making those species extinct threatens an important source of drugs. That's why the extinction premise matters to an argument about medicine availability, rather than remaining a separate environmental concern.
- E
The author doesn't argue that only narrowly focused deregulation can ever have benefits. The warning concerns this broad change and its possible effect on sources of medicines. E turns that limited argument into a general rule about every beneficial effort at deregulation. That rule is never established or presented as the conclusion.
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