PrepTest 119, Section 2, Question 3
Philosopher: Effective tests have recently been developed to(78 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(13 more words not shown)
- AThe advance of(8 more words not shown)
- BThe advance of(10 more words not shown)
- CMedical technologies continue(9 more words not shown)
- DThe more we(11 more words not shown)
- EThe advance of(5 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Knowing earlier sounds useful. But what can the person do with that knowledge?
If an early warning lets someone prevent a disease, I can see the benefit. Even without prevention, perhaps a warning could help someone delay it. But the passage gives us a harder case: learning about a fatal, incurable disease can itself harm some people. More information isn't automatically a better experience for the person receiving it.
Then the philosopher asks whether these tests should be available at all. My reaction is: why not let people decide whether they want to know? If I don't want the warning, I could decline the test. Someone else might want it. Harm to some people doesn't immediately settle what everyone should be allowed to do.
What we’re looking for
But we're not being asked to defeat a recommendation here. The philosopher raises a question rather than deciding it, and our task is to identify the broader situation the example illustrates. We've developed a new ability to find out something, and now we have to decide how to handle it. I'll look for an answer that captures that problem without pretending the passage settles it.
Working the answers
- A
It's true that the medical advance hasn't solved every problem: these tests don't prevent the diseases they detect. But that describes only part of the example. The philosopher goes further and asks whether making the tests available is the right thing to do. We should keep A in consideration, then compare it with an answer that captures that additional concern.
- BCorrect
The advance creates a new ethical question: should we make an early warning available when receiving it can harm people? Before the tests existed, this particular decision about offering them wasn't available. B explains both the new medical ability and the dilemma that comes with it. That's why it fits the whole example better than A's broader observation about unsolved problems.
- C
The tests are a medical advance, but the passage isn't mainly illustrating how our understanding of disease keeps improving. It focuses on what to do with the new information. C captures the development that starts the discussion and leaves out the decision that makes it difficult.
- D
No one discovers that medicine knows less than previously thought. We have more ability to predict certain diseases and still lack the ability to prevent most of them. That gap isn't a claim that learning makes us recognize our own ignorance.
- E
This expands one concern into a judgment about technological progress generally. The philosopher questions whether these particular tests should be available; that doesn't establish that advances in technology as a whole have questionable value. B stays with the specific kind of difficulty the example presents.
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