Q4 - Most antidepressant drugs cause weight

Why is the correct answer (C)? Is it because "most" (not all) AD cause weight gain and as such, at least "some" patients gain?

Why not B? Could be but must not be?

[sbuzzetto10]

Hey!
When doing this question I was down to B and C as well. My reasoning for C was similar to yours. Since it's an inference question you want the answer that can be PROVEN by the passage. B is too strong to be proven--it could be true but it is not without a doubt true. Think--what if someone is severely depressed and NEEDS medication, should they not ask for it because they want to lose weight? The argument would have had to have been pretty specific for this to definitely be true (It is always more important to lose weight than to take medicine)

So C is correct b/c it's the only one clearly proven. If "Most antidepressant drugs cauase weight gain.." and "some weight gain is unlikely to be preventable" (regardless of dieting) then it must be true that "at least SOME will gain weight"

My method on these inference questions when you get down to two is look at how they're different--one will be too strong, too much of a reach, assuming SOMETHING and the other can be proven.

GL!

[secretad22]

B states that people who are trying to lose weight should not ask their doctors for an antidepressant drug.

That is not something that must be true, or very close it (most strongly supported) because the stimulus states that most antidepressant drugs cause weight gain.

Thus, a patient can ask doctors for an antidepressant drug that does not cause weight gain, since there is a possibility of not all antidepressant drugs causing weight gain.

[tianpuzhang1990]

Here's my qualm for C: it's not definitively proven. Here's how:

The passage says that "Most" antidepressant drugs cause weight gains. One only gains weight if one takes "such" drugs. So what if everybody is taking the rest of the antidepressant drugs that do not necessarily cause weight gain? In that case we'd have nobody who gains weight.

Can someone address this?

[timmydoeslsat]

Here's my qualm for C: it's not definitively proven. Here's how:

The passage says that "Most" antidepressant drugs cause weight gains. One only gains weight if one takes "such" drugs. So what if everybody is taking the rest of the antidepressant drugs that do not necessarily cause weight gain? In that case we'd have nobody who gains weight.

Can someone address this?

Great post. You are absolutely right in that view. And that would be something to consider on a must be true question stem. This is a most strongly supported question stem, so we can have leeway.

The stimulus is not one of tying together conditionals or quantifiers, so this one will be won in the answer choices:

We want to pick the most supported answer choice:

A) Physicians should not prescribe antidepressant if patient is overweight. We do not have a lot of support in the way of what physicians should do. I mean we can have a situation of these antidepressants be in the interest of taking rather than not. And in any case, we could prescribe others that may not cause weight gain. We don't know for sure they exist, but we also don't know that they are precluded either.

B) I have to agree with the above posters. I think this question came down to B and C for a majority of people. This has such strong language, even with the qualification of these people wanting to lose weight. Should not ask their doctor for an antidepressant drug? I could see this having more support if we knew all antidepressant drugs caused weight gain. But we only know that most cause. We have not ruled out the idea that there isn't one.

C) Is the weakest of all answer choices. Just 1 person gain weight from taking an antidepressant drug. I know that most AD cause weight gain. I know that even some prevention I can do while taking these drugs, like diet, I am still likely to gain weight. This answer choice of just 1 person having weight gain caused by an antidepressant is very weak.

D) We are given some evidence that weight gain can be caused by antidepressants themselves. This would not give us support for drawing such a claim.

E) All is a strong claim. All patients taking AD should diet to maintain weight. What if people actually wanted to gain weight?

Choice C wins this one by having such small language.

[giladedelman]

All excellent posts! In response to tianpuzhang1990, if the stimulus says that these drugs cause weight gain, then someone must be taking them--otherwise they aren't causing anything. But Timmy makes the better point: the right answer doesn't have to be 100% provable, just the most provable, which (C) definitely is.

Great discussion!

[nja21]

All excellent posts! In response to tianpuzhang1990, if the stimulus says that these drugs cause weight gain, then someone must be taking them--otherwise they aren't causing anything.

I don't think that's necessarily true. Imagine scientists discover a new kind of deep ocean fish that is poisonous to humans. Does this mean that at least one person has been poisoned by the fish? No.

The only reason why (C) is the answer is because it is MOST STRONGLY supported A/C, or in other words, the rest of A/Cs are LESS STRONGLY supported that (C). If this question were a MBT question, (C) would not be the answer.

[abdelmalak17]

Correct me if I'm wrong Manhattan Prep LSAT geeks. lol

Ok, so answer choices B and C seem the most attractive but after analyzing the question and reading the post on this forum, I realized two things
(Keep in mind between B and C, both answer choices really just need the first sentence of the stimulus "Most antidepressant drugs cause weight gain"
1.) How B is actually easy and quick to eliminate: Think of Most as a percentage of 51%, that means people trying to lose weight still have a 49% chance of taking Anti-depressant drug and not gaining weight. So, that's how I see answer choice B eliminated quickly in my opinion. Also, "should" is an evil word in LSAT answer choices sometimes.

2.) How answer choice C is easily provable and how I think it can still be correct if this was a "Must Be True" question: "Most antidepressant drugs cause weight gain" this is conditional logic from the Manhattan LR Book from Chapter 8. Most Antidepressant drugs cause weight gain, so we know for sure " At least some patients taking antidepressant drugs gain weight as a result of taking them", exactly what answer choice C states.

The traditional phrase "Most A's are B's" so then there must be " Some B's are A's" A = antidepressant drugs B = weight gain

This is why I feel like answer choice C qualifies as a Most Strongly Supports and a Must Be True.

[vstoever]

just to add if someone is super depressed even though they want to lose weight maybe taking the antidepressant is more important. So I think that eliminates both A and B right away. You can't assume that weight is more important than one's mental state.

[LolaC289]

I have a different reason to get rid of (B) but I'm still not sure if it's valid.

But if we consider [most antidepressant drugs cause weight gain + some weight gain is unlikely to prevent = some patients taking antidepressant drug definitely gain weight] to be acceptable, then I see no difference in this respect (possibility to weight gain) in (B) & (C). The gap is, even if 99% of all antidepressant drugs cause unpreventable weight gain, it's OK as long as there is 1% of such drugs doesn't do the same thing. And this applies both to (B) & (C) so I can't decide which is better in the face of this ultimately unjustifiable "unavoidable weight gain".

But I do think there is one crucial difference with (B) & (C). While (C) concerns only factual problem, (B) seems like making a suggestion to people making decisions. It's very strong to ask weight-loss seeking people to not ask for antidepressant drug, because we don't know if these people are depressed or not. If they are deeply depressed and they need to lose weight, who's to tell which is more important? Getting over depression or a slim body? There are so many aspects to taking into account when making a decision, it is not just a descriptive matter but many other values/considerations involved.

(C), although also not fully provable, is at least a little bit better than (B) in the aspect described above. I don't know if that is indeed a point to take into account, but "cream out of crap", I would say.