PrepTest 123, Section 2, Question 17
Hospital executive: At a recent conference on nonprofit(42 more words not shown)
The hospital executive's argument is(9 more words not shown)
- AThe argument confuses(12 more words not shown)
- BThe argument relies(19 more words not shown)
- CThe argument assumes(16 more words not shown)
- DThe argument draws(16 more words not shown)
- EThe argument infers(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
I'd listen to computer experts about protecting computer data. But are they the right people to decide the hospital's highest priority?
Unauthorized access to confidential information could be a serious threat. That doesn't settle whether it is the most significant threat the hospital faces. What about caring for patients? What about a health crisis? People who work with computers may be especially alert to computer problems. Before taking their ranking as decisive, I'd want to know whether they can assess the other risks too.
The hospital executive goes straight from their testimony to “This should be our highest priority.” That's the leap I don't buy. We can take a data-security problem seriously without accepting that these experts have established how it ranks against everything else the hospital needs to do.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw question, I'd look for reliance on expertise that hasn't been shown to cover the whole claim. We don't need to prove the experts are wrong or biased. We need to notice that expertise about computers, by itself, doesn't establish expertise about all the hospital's competing concerns.
Working the answers
- A
What cause is being mistaken for a solution? The executive hears that unauthorized access is a major threat and recommends prioritizing confidentiality. The problem is accepting the experts' broad ranking without sufficient support, not mixing up what caused a problem with what would solve it.
- BCorrect
The experts know about computers. Their claim ranks unauthorized data access against the other threats facing large institutions. That ranking requires a broader assessment than the argument has shown them qualified to make.
Their testimony may give the executive a good reason to investigate data security. It doesn't, on its own, establish that protecting confidentiality should come ahead of every other concern. B identifies that gap without claiming that computer experts cannot possibly understand other risks.
- C
We aren't given two things that occur together and then told that one causes the other. There's no correlation being turned into a cause here. The executive relies on an expert opinion to set a priority.
- D
There is no sample of hospitals whose results are used to draw a conclusion about hospitals generally. That would be a different argument—for example, surveying a few unusual hospitals and treating their problems as typical of all hospitals. Here, the support is the computer experts' testimony.
- E
The executive doesn't extend a claim about large institutions to every institution, including small ones. The argument applies the experts' claim to the hospital's priorities. Its mistake concerns accepting that broad ranking on the stated expertise, not expanding “large institutions” into “all institutions.”
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