Medications with an unpleasant taste are generally produced only in tablet, capsule, or soft-gel form. The active ing...

Mehran on February 5, 2016

@dfolave the conclusion here is, "M will most likely be produced in capsule form."

The support provided for this conclusion?

Premise 1: Medications with an unpleasant taste are generally produced only in tablet, capsule, or soft-gel form.

Premise 2: The active ingredient in medication M is a waxy substance that cannot tolerate the heat used to manufacture tablets because it has a low melting point.

Premise 3: The company developing M does not have soft-gel manufacturing technology and manufactures all its medication itself.

Right away you should see there is a major gap in this argument.

We know that medications with AN UNPLEASANT TASTE are generally produced only in tablet, capsule, or soft-gel form.

The argument then presents evidence that tablet and soft-gel are not possible, thereby concluding that M will most likely be produced in capsule form.

However, for Premise 1 to apply here, M would have to be a medication with an unpleasant taste.

We are asked to identify the answer choice that most strongly supports the conclusion of the argument so this is a Strengthen question.

(B) does this by closing this gap, i.e. Medication M has an unpleasant taste.

To emphasize, the structure of this argument is as follows:

P1: MUT ==> T, C or SG
P2: not T
P3: not SG

C: C

(B) provides the missing premise, i.e. MUT.

Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.