Q6 - The number of hospital emergency

[dj_grey]

Ok, on this one I know that answers B, C, D and E are not the right choice.......by why is "A" the right choice. DOesnt "A" make an assumption that those in the drug trade use heroin? This may not be a valid assumption.

The reason i am asking about this one is i discounted "A" right off the bat because it assumed those in the drug trade used heroin.

[bbirdwell]

No, (A) does not assume that. It straight up says it: "raised the incidence of physical injury to heroin users."

This gives a plausible reason as to why more heroin users showed up in emergency rooms during that time.

See it now?

[dj_grey]

Ok, why would widespread use of automatic weapons in drug trade increase incidense of physical injury of heroin users unless herin users were also involved in the drug trade........

ok, so lets say heroin users are not involved in the drug trade but lets say this instead...........increased seat belt use by drug traffic users increased the incidense of physical injury of heroin users......does not make any more sense to me than the automatci weapons case.

I think your right the answer is A i just have not heard a good argument for it yet......please help?

[bbirdwell]

Ok, why would widespread use of automatic weapons in drug trade increase incidense of physical injury of heroin users...

It doesn't matter!

First, make sure you understand the question.
There are two sentences in the argument: a statistic and a conclusion. Your job is to choose an answer that has two characteristics: it helps explain the statistic, and it does not support the conclusion.

Then, look at the argument.
Statistic: # of hospital visits by heroin users went up 25%
Conclusion: Heroin use went up

Now, look at (A). It essentially says "more heroin users had physical injuries." Do you see how this might cause more heroin users to show up in hospitals?

Furthermore, (A) does not support the conclusion because it doesn't say anything at all about heroin usage. Therefore, it's a good answer.

Do you see those connections? The part about weapons is a distraction that doesn't matter at all. It doesn't matter why they're getting hurt. Whether it's machine guns or cockroaches or seat belts or dirty bathwater that's causing the injuries, the fact is, more heroin users are getting hurt. That's the part that matters.

Lemme know if that's still unclear.

[dj_grey]

I think i get it now.

I read your last response and then i re-read the question again. This time paying close attention to the statement just about the possible answers which said (the same thing you said in your last response)......."Which one of the following , IF TRUE...."

I was getting hung up how weapons were causing heroin users to get injured rather than accepting the statement as true and evaluating it on that basis.

THANKS for not giving up on me and leading me to the answer!

[cvfh17]

why not E?

[pretty_shy96]

cvfh17, I BELIEVE E is not the correct answer, because it includes the word most. Most throws off the answer choice because it does not show what could attribute to ALL heroin visitors, only majority of them. I was initially between A and E, but I chose A since it was a better answer choice for the reason stated above.

[WaltGrace1983]

why not E?

cvfh17, I BELIEVE E is not the correct answer, because it includes the word most. Most throws off the answer choice because it does not show what could attribute to ALL heroin visitors, only majority of them. I was initially between A and E, but I chose A since it was a better answer choice for the reason stated above.

I don't think we should really discount an answer choice because of the word "most." In fact, "most" is a very common answer choice in strengthen/weaken questions. When we can say something about the majority then this basically means that we are talking about a general maxim, something very conducive to weakening/strengthening an argument.

For example, let's say I something like "The amount of car accidents with red cars increased. Thus, people who drive red cars are bad drivers." If I wanted to weaken the conclusion, I could say something like "Most accidents involving red cars occurred as drivers of blue cars hit parked red cars in grocery store parking lots" (I know that this is a very well-written answer choice ). Sure, we don't know about ALL accidents but it seems that this would definitely weaken the conclusion by introducing shattering doubt to its validity.

Back to the original question. The reason why I got rid of this was actually because it doesn't seem to weaken the conclusion that the USE rose and, actually, it may even strengthen it! It most of this visits were actually due to things like infections or overdoses, it seems reasonable to believe that this would mean more use of heroin. However, the vagueness of this answer as it relates to strengthening or weaken the conclusion lends itself to dismissing this answer choice. We'd have to make some assumptions if we were to have (E) be the correct answer.

As for the other answer choices...

(B) This might strengthen the conclusion because, if the risk of infection went down, we would probably expect less visits. This goes against our goal of explaining the statistic.

(C) How does "drug abuse" relate to heroin? Also, this seem to strengthen the argument by boosting the 25% premise while perhaps showing that the use of heroin did go up as these emergency rooms couldn't even keep up with the amount of "medical emergencies related to drug abuse."

(D) This functions a lot like (C). It boosts (though doesn't explain) the premise while perhaps strengthening the conclusion.