PrepTest 118, Section 3, Question 15
Psychologist: Doctors should never prescribe sedatives for people(42 more words not shown)
Each of the following describes(7 more words not shown)
- AIt presumes, without(12 more words not shown)
- BIt fails to(21 more words not shown)
- CIt neglects the(13 more words not shown)
- DIt overlooks the(9 more words not shown)
- EIt presumes, without(16 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Why never prescribe the sedative? Even if stress causes the insomnia, that doesn't yet show that helping someone sleep is useless.
Treating the cause sounds appealing, but will psychotherapy work for every patient? Perhaps some people's stress doesn't improve with that approach. And even if therapy helps, why rule out another way of helping the patient sleep? Naming the cause hasn't established that sedatives can't help with the problem.
The underlying question is whether a remedy has to retrace the problem's cause. If someone got into debt through gambling, getting a job could still help pay the debt. The job needn't undo the earlier gambling to improve the situation. Similarly, identifying stress as a cause doesn't by itself show that another way of helping the patient has no place.
What we’re looking for
This is a flaw-EXCEPT question. Four choices identify genuine weaknesses; we want the one that doesn't describe a mistake in the argument. We already have several concerns about the blanket recommendation. Check which answer adds a criticism that the psychologist's reasoning doesn't support.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
This runs the stated relationship backward. The psychologist says stress causes insomnia. The argument doesn't rely on insomnia making people unable to cope with stress.
That reverse relationship might or might not exist, but the psychologist hasn't used it to recommend psychotherapy. Since we're finding the exception to valid criticisms, A is correct: it attributes an assumption the reasoning doesn't require.
- B
This is a real problem for never prescribing sedatives. The evidence says most cases psychologists treat are stress-related; it doesn't rule out other cases. If sedatives are the only known effective treatment for insomnia not caused by stress, the recommendation would deny those patients their effective treatment. B exposes the danger of extending the advice to everyone.
- C
This matches one of our initial concerns. The argument recommends psychotherapy to alleviate stress without addressing patients for whom it doesn't do that. For those people, the proposed replacement might fail to address even the cause the psychologist emphasizes. That is a relevant weakness, so it isn't the exception.
- D
What if the sedative helps with the stress itself? Then dismissing it as a drug that changes biochemistry doesn't establish that it fails to help with the stated cause. This challenges the sharp contrast the psychologist draws between medication and stress treatment.
- E
Here's another gap: the evidence comes from patients psychologists treat, while the recommendation covers people with insomnia generally. That selected group might contain an unusually high proportion of stress-related cases. Other patients might have different causes and different treatment needs. The argument hasn't justified treating the psychologists' patients as representative of everyone.
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