CR GMAT PREP-It is illegal to advertise prescription medicat

[shans.bgp]

It is illegal to advertise prescription medications in Hedland except directly to physicians, either by mail or in medical journals. A proposed law would allow general advertising of prescription medications. Opponents object that the general population lacks the specialized knowledge to evaluate such advertisements and might ask their physicians for inappropriate medications. But since physicians have the final say as to whether to prescribe a medication for a patient, inappropriate prescriptions would not become more common.

Which of the following would it be most useful to establish in order to evaluate the argument?

A. Wheter advertising for prescription medications might alert patients to the existence of effective treatments for minor ailments that they had previously thought to be untreatable

B. Whether some people might go to a physcian for no reason other than ask for a particular medication they have seen advertised

C. Whether the proposed law requires prescription-medication advertisements directed to the general public to provide the same information as do advertisements directed to physicians.

D. Whether advertisements for prescription medications are currently an important source of information about newly available medications for physicians

E. Whether physicians would give in to a patient's demands for a prescription medication chosen by the patient when the one originally prescribed by the physician fails to perform as desired.

OA is E.....Why not B
Also please tell me how to evaluate argements.

[jlucero]

Premise: It's ok to allow prescription medications to be advertised to the public b/c physicians would have the final call on whether to prescribe these medications.

Conclusion: Inappropriate prescriptions would not become more common.

Notice that the correct answer to an "evaluate the argument" type question will have two different answers based on what the answer to the question would be.

(B) People go to a physician just to ask for medication VS People don't go to a physician just to ask for medication

(E) Physicians give in to a patient's demands VS Physician don't give in to a patient's demands

Which of these answer choices more directly would give us to different outcomes to the conclusion? While you could argue that (B) might make physicians more likely to give out more medications, (E) says that physicians definitely will.

[Jazmet]

Would you please help me out with the explanation of the following option?

C. Whether the proposed law requires prescription-medication advertisements directed to the general public to provide the same information as do advertisements directed to physicians.

I chose 'C' instead of E, and I didn't pick 'E' as the question argues on "inappropriate prescriptions would not become more common" --

[RonPurewal]

what you want to do with all of these passages is, basically, simplify the language (at least in your head -- you won't have the time to write it out).
basically, imagine that you had to explain what's going on ... to a decently smart 10- or 11-year-old.

clearly a 10- or 11-year-old (exceptional language geniuses excepted) is not going to understand the current wording... and that's why the problem seems hard!
... but, a theoretical 10- or 11-year-old would totally understand this:
They might start showing people commercials for drugs. But, basically, when it comes to drugs, people don't know what the heck they are talking about. Still, the doctor can say "No" if someone is asking for something they don't really need, so this shouldn't hurt people.

if you can do that, then it should become a lot easier to think about these answer choices.

(c) is about the information contained in the advertisements. however, we've already established that, "when it comes to drugs, people don't know what the heck they are talking about" -- so, it doesn't really matter what information is in the advertisements.

(e), on the other hand, says, "Patients can talk their doctors into giving them meds."
You should be able to see how the argument is affected if this is true.

[Jazmet]

okay! Thank you Ron.

[RonPurewal]

okay! Thank you Ron.

you're welcome.

[reshamdang]

Hi,

I narrowed down the options to B and E, and finally went with B.
Though it has been explained, I still don't feel convinced.

Can you please explain why E would be preferred over B?

Thanks :)

[RonPurewal]

Can you please explain why E would be preferred over B?

(b) is irrelevant because the patients' motivation is not the issue. the issue is the speaker's contention that doctors will always make appropriate decisions.
the only choice that affects this issue is (e).

[TroyJ98]

Can you please explain why E would be preferred over B?

(b) is irrelevant because the patients' motivation is not the issue. the issue is the speaker's contention that doctors will always make appropriate decisions.
the only choice that affects this issue is (quote)

Could you explain why choice D is incorrect? It seems to also affect how the physicians will make a decision.

[RonPurewal]

Could you explain why choice D is incorrect? It seems to also affect how the physicians will make a decision.

please watch your quote tags; it took me a while to figure out what was going on there. (my first thought was, "wow, this person writes a lot like me.")

--

the proposed change has no effect on doctors' exposure to advertisements.
so, there is no reason to think that the effect of the advertisements on doctors will be any different after the proposed change is implemented.

[RitikK630]

Hi Ron,

I agree that E is a valid contender. However I am not able to completely discard option D.
As per D if advertisements are an important source of information for physicians then they might prescribe a medication on the basis of this information only i.e. they might lack the specialised knowledge of prescriptions and may prescribe inappropriate medication.
Thus there should be an another important source of information if the appropriate medication needs to be prescribed.

Can you tell me whats wrong with my reasoning above.

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron,

I agree that E is a valid contender. However I am not able to completely discard option D.
As per D if advertisements are an important source of information for physicians then they might

as soon as your reasoning gets THERE ^^ it's done. STOP.
you can NEVER build an argument on the basis of "might" or "could" or "maybe".
this is just basic common sense -- you can't pick an arbitrary possibility, pretend it's going to happen, and then build an argument on it!

[RonPurewal]

also, your "might" is an awfully far-fetched / absurd idea, since advertising directly to doctors is already legal in the country (as mentioned in the passage).

the idea that advertisements to the general public might become the primary vehicle of information FOR DOCTORS -- for whom there's already specialized information and advertising out there -- is, to say the least, not a very credible idea.