Q15 - Psychologist: Doctors should never prescribe

[jionggangtu]

why B couldn't be the answer?

In my opinion, cases of insomnia not caused by stress is not the main topic of this argument.

If this is not an EXCEPT question, we normally would not choose be to be the correct answer.

can anyone explain?

[giladedelman]

Thanks for your question.

So we're dealing with a very shaky argument. Based on the fact that most cases of insomnia that psychologists treat are caused by stress, the argument concludes that doctors should never prescribe sedatives to people with insomnia; instead, people with insomnia need psychotherapy to deal with their stress.

As my italics suggest, there are a number of ways to attack this argument, which we'll see as we explore the answer choices:

(B) does describe a flaw in the argument because the argument is concluding that doctors should never prescribe sedatives on the basis that most cases of insomnia are caused by stress. But what about the cases that AREN'T caused by stress? What if sedatives would be the best treatment for those cases? The argument totally ignores this possibility.

(C) attacks the "they need psychotherapy" part of the conclusion: if psychotherapy is useless for some people, then not all insomniacs need it, and maybe sedatives would be a better treatment.

(D) addresses yet another assumption in the argument: if sedatives can help reduce stress, then maybe they should be prescribed and insomniacs don't require psychotherapy.

(E) describes another flaw by pointing out that the argument makes a general conclusion about all insomnia cases based solely on those cases that are treated by psychologists. But what if the cases that psychologists treat are not representative--what if, for example, they are way more likely to be caused by stress than other cases?

That leaves (A), which is correct because it is not a flaw in the argument. The argument doesn't assume that insomnia makes it harder to cope with stress. In fact, this is the opposite of the causal relationship in the argument: it's saying that stress causes insomnia.

Does that clear this one up for you?

[Mab6q]

Quick way to get through this flaw question: use the negation test. Whenever you see an answer choice that begins with "it fails to consider", "it overlooks the possibility", or any statement indicating that the author doesn't consider something, then that essentially is a negated assumption; if the argument is hurt by that statement, then that answer choice presents a flaw in the argument because the author failed to consider it.

Here, B, C, D and E all function in this manner. They are negated assumptions that would destroy the argument.