Medical ethicist: Medical schools should not allow their students to accept even minor gifts from pharmaceutical companies. When psychological resesar...
GMAT Critical Reasoning : (CR) Questions
Medical ethicist: Medical schools should not allow their students to accept even minor gifts from pharmaceutical companies. When psychological resesarchers gave medical students small promotional gifts with a drug brand logo, those students' favourable attitude toward the brand increased. This shows that such gifts can bias students toward certain brands. In their future careers as doctors, this could lead them to make prescription choices that are not in patients' best interests.
Which of the following could most accurately express the main conclusion of the medical ethicist's argument?
Passage Analysis:
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| Medical schools should not allow their students to accept even minor gifts from pharmaceutical companies. |
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| When psychological researchers gave medical students small promotional gifts with a drug brand logo, those students' favourable attitude toward the brand increased. |
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| This shows that such gifts can bias students toward certain brands. |
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| In their future careers as doctors, this could lead them to make prescription choices that are not in patients' best interests. |
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Argument Flow:
The ethicist starts with their main position, then backs it up with research evidence, explains what that evidence means, and finally shows why this matters for patient care
Main Conclusion:
Medical schools should not allow their students to accept even minor gifts from pharmaceutical companies
Logical Structure:
The argument uses a study as evidence to show gifts create bias, then warns this bias will harm future patients, which supports the conclusion that schools must ban all gifts
Prethinking:
Question type:
Misc - Main Conclusion: We need to identify which answer choice best captures the ethicist's primary claim or position
Precision of Claims
The main conclusion is a prescriptive policy recommendation with absolute scope (no gifts, even minor ones) targeting a specific institutional relationship (medical schools and pharmaceutical companies)
Strategy
For main conclusion questions, we look for the statement that represents the author's primary position - what they're ultimately trying to convince us of. The main conclusion is usually supported by other statements in the argument rather than supporting them. Here, the ethicist starts with their position, then provides evidence and reasoning. We need to distinguish between the main claim and the supporting evidence/reasoning.
This directly restates the ethicist's opening statement, which is their main position. When we look at the argument structure, everything else (the research evidence, the bias interpretation, and the patient harm prediction) serves to support this primary policy recommendation. This captures exactly what the ethicist wants us to accept as their main conclusion.
While this accurately describes what the research showed and what the ethicist concluded from it, this is supporting evidence rather than the main conclusion. The ethicist uses this point to build toward their policy recommendation, but it's not their ultimate claim.
This represents the ethicist's prediction about potential consequences, but it's part of the reasoning chain that supports the main conclusion. The ethicist mentions this possibility to strengthen their case for banning gifts, but it's not what they're primarily trying to convince us of.
This is too broad and vague compared to the ethicist's specific policy recommendation. The ethicist doesn't just say gifts are inappropriate - they make a specific prescriptive claim about what medical schools should do. This choice misses the precise institutional action being recommended.
This simply restates the research finding that serves as evidence in the argument. While accurate, it's clearly supporting information rather than the main conclusion. The ethicist cites this research to support their policy position, but the research itself isn't their main point.