Q18 - Two Alternative Drugs

[KakaJaja]

Could anyone tell me why E is right? Cuz drug z is not clearly more effective than drug y. So even if E is established, we still don't know which one to choose.

Moreover I wonder what is the purpose of marketing practices of drug z put into the stimuli? As in both questions this condition has not been taken into accounted. Is it just a red herring?

Thank you!

[timmydoeslsat]

In retrospect it is a red herring in this argument.

It is not impacting why the arguer believes that there is no established medical reason for doctors to use Z rather than Y.

This conclusion is supported by the idea that drug Z does not clearly treat the problem more effectively. The evidence prior to that statement did tell us that Z is either no more effective than Y or slightly more effective than Y.

This is where answer choice E comes into play. We are being asked for a principle that would support a doctor using Z. What do we know about Z that could support that use? That is can be possibly more effective than the only other alternative. Answer choice E makes this clear, regardless of cost it states.

[rpcuhk]

Hi, can anyone weigh in why answer choice (A) is wrong?

I could see that answer choice (E) strengthens the doctor's decision more directly than (A).

However, doesn't (A) strengthen doctor's decision by sanctioning the prescription of Z over Y to "rich" patient?

[maryadkins]

Glad to help.

I'll go ahead and break down the whole thing.

Drug Z is either no more effective or only slightly more effective than drug Y, which is less $

-->

There is no established medical reason for doctors to use drug Z

But what if the chance that it's slightly more effective is worth the cost? What if I don't care about money, I just want the best odds of getting well?

(E) strengthens the doctor's decision to use drug Z (which this argument is against) by saying this exact thing.

As for the others:

(A) is not relevant because there's nothing in here about financial hardship. The recommendation is for all people regardless of finances.

(B) like (A) misses the point.

(C) is off because how would this support the doctor's decision? We don't know if he's being influenced. And if he is, well, we want him to be able to use drug Z

(D) is like (C)

Hope this clears things up!

[WaltGrace1983]

I want to add something here for those of you who, like me, were stuck between (C) and (E). To me, (C) was very tempting because, if it is true, then the one negative thing we heard about Z other than the cost would be moot. Thus, why NOT choose Z?

However, this line of thinking would support the conclusion that we have no reason not to choose Z. The thing we are supposed to support is that we DO have a reason TO choose Z. If we take (C), it may say that there is no reason to NOT choose Z; but we want to know why we definitely WOULD choose Z.

(E) fills the gap.

[jm.kahn]

I was confused by the following part of the stim:

drug Z is either no more effective or only slightly more effective than Y.

"no more effective" literally means Z can be no more effective than Y, which is to say that Z can be equal or less effective than Y.

So the full sentence becomes: Z is either equal/or less effective, or only slightly more effective than Y.

That is, Z can be less or equal or only slightly more effective than Y.

This means that the choice E can be applied to justify even choosing Y over Z, not only Z over Y.

Can some language/grammar expert explain the issue with "no more effective"?
It doesn't seem that taken literally it should only mean "equal" and not "equal or less".