The evidence of the last 50 years in this country shows how unlikely it is that the cost of treating...
GMAT Critical Reasoning : (CR) Questions
The evidence of the last 50 years in this country shows how unlikely it is that the cost of treating any particular disease in the population at large will fall merely because of improvements in medical technology. For while medical technology advanced tremendously during that time, annual overall spending on disease treatment also rose dramatically.
The argument is vulnerable to challenge on the grounds that it fails to take into account the possibility of change in each of the following EXCEPT
Passage Analysis:
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| The evidence of the last 50 years in this country shows how unlikely it is that the cost of treating any particular disease in the population at large will fall merely because of improvements in medical technology. |
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| For while medical technology advanced tremendously during that time, annual overall spending on disease treatment also rose dramatically. |
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Argument Flow:
The argument starts with a conclusion about what's unlikely to happen (costs falling due to tech improvements), then provides historical evidence showing the opposite pattern actually occurred over 50 years
Main Conclusion:
Medical technology improvements alone are unlikely to reduce the cost of treating diseases in the general population
Logical Structure:
The author uses a simple cause-and-effect reasoning: if tech improvements were going to lower costs, we should have seen that happen over the past 50 years when tech advanced tremendously. But since spending actually increased dramatically during that time, this suggests tech improvements don't lead to lower treatment costs
Prethinking:
Question type:
EXCEPT question - This is asking us to identify what the argument DOES account for, while the four wrong answers will be things the argument FAILS to consider
Precision of Claims
The argument makes a broad claim about treatment costs for 'any particular disease' based on 'overall spending' data, and assumes technology improvements alone should lower costs
Strategy
For EXCEPT questions, we skip the prethinking process because we need to see all five answer choices to determine which four represent valid criticisms the argument fails to address, and which one the argument actually does consider or isn't vulnerable to
The argument fails to consider that the average age of the population might have changed over 50 years. If the population aged significantly, we'd naturally expect higher medical spending regardless of technology improvements, since older people typically require more medical care. An aging population could completely explain the spending increase, making this a major flaw the argument overlooks.
The argument fails to account for inflation's impact on the value of money. When we compare spending from 50 years ago to today without adjusting for inflation, of course the numbers look dramatically higher! A dollar in 1970 bought much more than a dollar today. The 'dramatic rise' in spending might largely reflect inflation rather than actual increased treatment costs, making this a serious oversight.
The argument doesn't consider that population size likely grew substantially over 50 years. More people naturally means higher total medical spending, even if per-person costs remained the same or even decreased. The argument uses total spending data but ignores that there are simply more people to treat, making this another significant flaw.
The number of medical researchers doesn't really affect the argument's core logic. Whether there are 10,000 or 100,000 researchers doesn't change the relationship between technological improvements and treatment costs that the argument is examining. The quantity of researchers isn't a factor that would make the spending data misleading or affect the conclusion about technology's impact on costs. This is what the argument actually isn't vulnerable to.
The argument fails to consider that the types of diseases prevalent in the population might have changed dramatically over 50 years. New diseases (like HIV/AIDS), increased rates of chronic conditions (diabetes, heart disease), or changes in disease patterns could drive up spending regardless of technological improvements. Different diseases have vastly different treatment costs, so changing disease profiles could explain the spending increase.