Q10 - Physician: Clinical psychologists who are not also doc

[Laura Damone]

Question Type:
Strengthen: Principle Support

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: clinical psychologists without medical degrees shouldn't be allowed to prescribe psychiatric meds. Premises: clinical psychology training has at most a few hundred hours of neuroscience, physiology and pharmacology. Medical degree programs, on the other hand, require years of training in these fields before degree holders can prescribe psychiatric meds.

Answer Anticipation:
This argument compares medical degree holders to psychology degree holders. The difference? One has years of training in three fields whereas the other has at most a few hundred hours. We should predict that the right answer will establish that years of training are necessary to prescribe meds, or at the very least, that a few hundred hours are insufficient. Because the conclusion in this argument is a recommendation, we should also expect the right answer to follow this standard format: if (something from premise), then (recommendation from conclusion). In this case, we should expect: if (something we know about clinical psychologists) then (shouldn't be allowed to prescribe meds). When evaluating answers, we'll rule out any that have a sufficient condition our clinical psychologists don't fulfill, or a necessary condition that can't establish they shouldn't be allowed to prescribe.

Correct answer:
C

Answer choice analysis:
(A) This one is all wrong. We need the right answer to apply to clinical psychologists who aren't medicals doctors, not those who are. And we need the right answer to help us conclude who shouldn't be allowed to prescribe, not who should.

(B) This one has the right necessary condition (shouldn't be allowed to prescribe) but the wrong sufficient condition. Our clinical psychologists do have clinical psychology training, so this principle doesn't apply to them.

(C) If you don't have years of training, you shouldn't be allowed to prescribe. Bingo. This matches our prediction. It applies to the clinical psychologists who aren't medical docs, and it allows us to conclude that the shouldn't be writing prescriptions.

(D) Tempting, but this has the wrong necessary condition (is sufficient to be able to write prescriptions). If, instead, it said that this training should be necessary in order to be allowed to write prescriptions, it would be a correct answer.

(E) This has the right sufficient condition (clinical psychologists) but the wrong necessary condition (should receive years of training). Simply establishing that they should have this training doesn't help us prove that they need this training in order to be trusted to write prescriptions.

Takeaway/Pattern:
So many principle support questions have conclusions that are recommendations. Use the template: if (something from premise), then (recommendation from conclusion) to predict the correct answer. Rule out any answer choices that point to a different recommendation (wrong necessary condition) or that don't apply (wrong sufficient condition).

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