Summarize Argument
Some doctors argue that asthmagon should be banned for asthma patients. Their support is that 20% of asthma patients suffered serious side effects from asthmagon during studies.
Notable Assumptions
The doctors assume that asthmagon should be banned based on its side effects. This means that they believe the serious side effects outweigh any potential benefits that asthmagon affords asthma patients. The doctors also assume that asthmagon hasn’t changed as a drug since these studies were undertaken, and that the studies weren’t compromised by some external factor.
A
In Rhiago, where asthmagon had been the most widely prescribed of the beta-2 agonists, the number of asthma deaths increased between 1981 and 1987.
If asthma deaths increased in an area where asthmagon was prescribed, that suggests the drug isn’t working all that well. This certainly doesn’t weaken the claim that asthmagon should be banned.
B
Many of the patients under observation to whom asthmagon was administered had not previously taken a beta-2 agonist.
Regardless of what the patients had previously taken, asthmagon had serious side effects. That alone, at least for the doctors, is enough to ban it. This doesn’t weaken that claim.
C
Despite the growing concern about the drug, many physicians in Rhiago still prescribe asthmagon to asthma sufferers.
We don’t care what doctors do. We care about whether or not asthmagon should be banned because of its side effects.
D
Among the patients observed, only those who had very high cholesterol counts suffered side effects after taking asthmagon.
Asthmagon does cause side effects, but only for a certain subset of patients. It doesn’t follow to ban asthmagon for everyone, which is what the doctors are recommending.
E
Asthmagon increases the severity of asthma attacks in some people because the drug can cause damage to heart tissues.
This is yet another reason to ban asthmagon. We’re looking for an answer that weakens the doctors’ stance.
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that the factory’s former employees filed for benefits to help weather unemployment, rather than for legitimate injury-related reasons. He supports this stance by pointing to the increase in injury claims made after the factory closed, compared to while the factory was open.
Notable Assumptions
Based on a correlation between injury claims and employment status, the author assumes the latter is causing the former. The author also assumes that former employees don’t have legitimate injuries they withheld making claims for until after their employment came to an end. And the author assumes that nothing happened shortly before the factory closed that would’ve caused a legitimate increase in injury claims.
A
Workers cannot file for compensation for many job-related injuries, such as hearing loss from factory noise, until they have left the job.
Since workers can’t file for compensation until after their employment ends, it makes sense claims went up after the factory closed. This certainly weakens.
B
In the years before the factory closed, the factory’s managers dismissed several employees who had filed injury claims.
Employees were afraid to file injury claims, since the ones who did lost their jobs. This explains the sharp increase in claims once the factory shut down.
C
Most workers who receive an injury on the job file for compensation on the day they suffer the injury.
If most workers file for compensation right away, then why did all these employees wait until after the factory closed? This doesn’t give us nearly enough information to weaken the author’s argument.
D
Workers who incur partial disabilities due to injuries on the job often do not file for compensation because they would have to stop working to receive compensation but cannot afford to live on that compensation alone.
Workers chose not to file injury claims since they would’ve had to have stopped working. Once the factory was closed, they were free to file those claims since they no longer had jobs to protect.
E
Workers who are aware that they will soon be laid off from a job often become depressed, making them more prone to job-related injuries.
Workers actually sustained more workplace injuries shortly before the factory closed, hence why they filed more claims.
Summarize Argument
A play called Mankind must have been written between 1431 and 1471. This is because a certain coin referenced in the play wasn’t in circulation until 1431, and because a certain king referenced in the play as a living monarch died in 1471.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that the rose noble coin didn’t exist before it went into circulation. The author also assumes that because Henry VI was mentioned as living in the play’s means he was really alive. This means the author assumes that the dedication is historically accurate and representative of the time the play was written, rather than tacked on by a later playwright or compiler.
A
The Royal Theatre Company includes the play on a list of those performed in 1480.
We’re not interested in when the play was performed. We care about when it was written.
B
Another coin mentioned in the play was first minted in 1422.
Even if that coin was first minted in 1422, it could well have been in circulation later. The reason the rose noble is so important is because it wasn’t in circulation until 1431.
C
The rose noble was neither minted nor circulated after 1468.
Even if the coin was out of circulation 1468, it still could’ve been mentioned in the play. This doesn’t weaken the claim that Mankind was written between 1431 and 1471.
D
Although Henry VI was deposed in 1461, he was briefly restored to the throne in 1470.
At best, this simply means Mankind was written between 1431-61 and 1470-71, which doesn’t weaken the argument. But even if Henry VI was deposed in the 1460s, he was still a “living monarch” at the time—just one not currently ruling the country.
E
In a letter written in early 1428, a merchant told of having seen the design for a much-discussed new coin called the “rose noble.”
This pushes the possible date for Mankind to have been written back three years. Even if the rose noble wasn’t in circulation, there was a chance the playwright had heard of it.