Dr. Carabella: Not so. Telemedicine might help rural patient care initially. However, small hospitals will soon realize that they can minimize expenses by replacing physicians with technicians who can use telemedicine to transmit examinations to large medical centers, resulting in fewer patients being able to receive traditional, direct medical examinations. Eventually, it will be the rare individual who ever gets truly personal attention. Hence, rural as well as urban patient care will suffer.
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
In response to Dr. Jones’s claim that telemedicine will improve rural patient care, Dr. Carabella concludes this is not the case. As evidence, she points out that small hospitals will replace physicians with telemedicine technicians, which will cause fewer patients to receive direct examinations. As a result, rural and urban patient care will suffer.
Describe Method of Reasoning
Dr. Carabella counters the position held by Dr. Jones. She does this by describing a cause-and-effect relationship of what would happen if rural patient care were to adopt telemedicine. Introducing telemedicine would cause small hospitals to replace physicians, which would cause fewer patients to receive direct examinations and in turn cause patient care to suffer.
A
listing a set of considerations to show that a prescribed treatment that seems to be benefiting a patient in fact harms that patient
Dr. Carabella does not address the topic of prescribed treatment. She only hypothesizes the effects of introducing telemedicine technology.
B
describing the application of the technology discussed by Dr. Jones as one step that initiates a process that leads to an undesirable end
The undesirable end is Dr. Carabella’s claim that rural and urban patient care will suffer. The process is the cause-and-effect Dr. Carabella describes as a result of implementing telemedicine.
C
citing evidence that Dr. Jones lacks the professional training to judge the case at issue
Dr. Carabella does not address Dr. Jones’s medical training. Dr. Carabella addresses Dr. Jones’s argument directly.
D
invoking medical statistics that cast doubt on the premises used in Dr. Jones’s argument
Dr. Carabella does not mention any medical statistics. Her counter to Dr. Jones is made generally.
E
providing grounds for dismissing Dr. Jones’s interpretation of a key term in medical technology
Dr. Carabella does not argue that Dr. Jones misinterpreted a key term. In fact, it is implied that Dr. Carabella and Dr. Jones agree what telemedicine is.
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author hypothesizes that galanin makes rats crave fatty foods. Why? Because an experiment showed a correlation: rats who preferred fatty foods also had higher galanin concentrations in their brains.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes the correlation results from one particular causation: that lots of brain galanin causes rats to crave fatty foods. This means assuming there’s no other cause for that correlation, such as the reverse causation: that eating fatty foods causes galanin to build up in rats’ brains.
A
The craving for fatty foods does not invariably result in a rat’s choosing those foods over lean foods.
This doesn’t affect the argument. Rats could have “consistently” chosen fatty food without choosing it every single time.
B
The brains of the rats that consistently chose to eat fatty foods did not contain significantly more fat than did the brains of rats that consistently chose lean foods.
This is irrelevant. The author makes no claim about fat inside the rats’ brains—only the fat in their food and the galanin in their brains.
C
The chemical components of galanin are present in both fatty foods and lean foods.
This doesn’t mean the fatty and lean diets contained similar amounts of galanin. This is fully compatible with the reverse causation: the rats who preferred fatty foods simply consumed more galanin in their diets.
D
The rats that preferred fatty foods had the higher concentrations of galanin in their brains before they were offered fatty foods.
This strengthens the argument by casting doubt on an alternative explanation. It makes the reverse causation—that rats had lots of galanin in their brains because of their high fat intake—less likely.
E
Rats that metabolize fat less efficiently than do other rats develop high concentrations of galanin in their brains.
This detail is compatible with the conclusion, but it doesn’t strengthen the argument. It’s just as compatible with the reverse causation: rats who metabolize fat less efficiently crave fattier foods, and that higher fat consumption causes galanin to build up in their brains.
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author concludes that to be safe from attack, people should stay home whenever possible. Why? Because news media cover more violent crime than they used to, meaning violent crime has increased dramatically.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes media cover more violent crime because that crime is much more prevalent, and not for any other reason. In addition, he assumes people are less likely to be victims of violent crime when they stay at home.
A
Newspapers and televised news programs have more comprehensive coverage of violent crime than newspapers did in the old days.
This challenges the assumption that violent crime receives more coverage because it’s out of control. Since media today cover crime more comprehensively, an increase in coverage does not necessarily mean an increase in crime.
B
National data show that violent crime is out of control everywhere, not just in the author’s city.
This expands the scope of the conclusion, but provides no reason to question it. It implies people should stay home across the entire country, not just in the author’s city.
C
Police records show that people experience more violent crimes in their own neighborhoods than they do outside their neighborhoods.
This doesn’t say people are more likely to experience violent crime when they are at home. The author recommends people stick to their homes, not stick to their own neighborhoods when they go out.
D
Murder comprised a larger proportion of violent crimes in the old days than it does today.
This doesn’t say murder rates have decreased. It’s possible other types of violent crime have simply increased more than the murder rate.
E
News magazines play a more important role today in informing the public about crime than they did in the old days.
This doesn’t say newspapers and televised news over-report violent crime. News magazines may report the same amount of violent crime, even if that reporting is more important than it used to be.