Question

Public health expert: Increasing the urgency of a public health message may be counterproductive. In addition to irritating the majority who already behave responsibly, it may undermine all government pronouncements on health by convincing people that such messages are overly cautious. And there is no reason to believe that those who ignore measured voices will listen to shouting.

The two sections in boldface play which of the following roles in the public health expert’s argument?

(This question is from the Official Guide. Therefore, because of copyrights, the complete question cannot be copied here. The question can be accessed at GMAT Club)

Difficulty: Medium

Accuracy: 68%

Based on: 8763 sessions

Solution

The Story

Public health expert: Increasing the urgency of a public health message may be counterproductive. 

The public health expert is giving an opinion in this sentence. 

I wonder what ‘urgency of a public health message’ means. I’m thinking urgent messages would be something like: ‘act now!’, ‘you’ve got to stop smoking today!!!’.

‘Counterproductive’ means that the act would have the opposite of the desired effect: So, probably instead of inspiring people to act healthily, these messages would lead people to act unhealthily.

Why would increasing the urgency of such messages be counterproductive? Perhaps we’ll find out.

In addition to irritating the majority who already behave responsibly, it may undermine all government pronouncements on health by convincing people that such messages are overly cautious. 

‘In addition to’: So this is the first idea, and there are more to come. 

The second half of the sentence helps me understand who/ what is irritating those who already act responsibly.

‘it’: Increasing the urgency of a public health message

This sentence is giving us reasons for why increasing the urgency might be counterproductive.

  1. It would irritate all the people who already act responsibly. And those people form a majority.
    (How would this be counterproductive? Maybe some people would stop behaving responsibly after getting irritated.)
  2. It may undermine all government health announcements.
    Why?
    Because people would think that higher urgency health messages are overly cautious. (And would therefore pay less heed to the messages.)

This sentence gives us two reasons to support the point made in the first sentence. 

And there is no reason to believe that those who ignore measured voices will listen to shouting.

(Why are they talking about shouting and measured voices suddenly?)

When I relate this statement to what I’ve read so far, I gather that the author is basically trying to say that there is no reason to believe that those who ignore the current public health messages will listen to more urgent ones. This statement indicates that increasing the urgency will anyway not be beneficial.

Gist:

Increasing the urgency of public health messages may be counterproductive (main point).

Because (basis):

  1. It would irritate the people who already behave responsibly
  2. Too much urgency may undermine all government health announcements

Moreover, there is no reason to believe that if the current messaging didn’t work, more urgent messaging will. (So, why increase the urgency?)

Question Stem

The two sections in boldface play which of the following roles in the public health expert’s argument?

BF1 is the main point of the argument.

BF2 is one of the bases.

Answer choice analysis

Answer Choice: A

Incorrect

Selected by: 4%

  1. Yes, the first boldface is a conclusion.
    Yes, there is support provided for it.
    No, it is the main conclusion of the argument.
    The first half is wrong.
  2. Yes, the second boldface is an unsupported premise.
    Yes, it supports the argument’s main conclusion.
    The second half is correct.

Answer Choice: B

Incorrect

Selected by: 2%

  1. No, the first boldface itself is the only explicit conclusion in the argument.
    The first half is wrong.
  2. Yes, the second boldface does support the only explicit conclusion.
    The second half is correct.

Answer Choice: C

Incorrect

Selected by: 23%

  1. Yup, BF1 is the argument’s main conclusion.
    The first half is correct.
  2. Yes, BF2 supports that conclusion.
    No, BF2 is not itself a conclusion for which support is provided.
    The second half is wrong.

    Many test-takers interpret this half incorrectly. To understand why this half is incorrect, let’s evaluate three aspects:
    1. Does the last sentence support BF2?
    2. Does the first half of the second sentence support BF2?
    3. Is there support for BF2 within BF2?
  1. Does the last sentence support BF2?

No.

The last sentence gives us a reason for believing why it might not be beneficial to increase the urgency – people who don’t listen to current messages will probably not pay heed to the more urgent ones either. So, there will not be any positive outcome of increasing the urgency.


BF2 talks about a particular negative outcome: all government pronouncements on health will be undermined by convincing people that such messages are overly cautious.

The notion that there wouldn’t be a positive outcome doesn’t support the idea that there will be a particular negative outcome.

Moreover, the last sentence starts with the word ‘and’. The structure of the last two sentences is: 

In addition to X, Y. And Z. 

In such a structure, I don’t see how Z would support Y.

  1. Does the first half of the second sentence support BF2?

    In addition to X, Y. X and Y are two independent ideas both mentioned to support the first sentence. X itself doesn’t support Y. 

Plus, the idea that people will get irritated by the more urgent messages has no impact on the idea that all government health pronouncements may get undermined. 

  1. Is there support for BF2 within BF2?

    Well, one part of BF2 supports the other – govementment health pronouncements may be undermined because people will be convinced that such more urgent messages are overly cautious.

    But, the parts combined form BF2. And when the answer choice states: ‘for which support is provided’, the ‘which’ refers to the entire BF2.

    We are not checking whether a part of BF2 is supported by another part of BF2. We need to check whether BF2 itself is supported by something. And no, nothing outside of BF2 supports it.

 

.

Answer Choice: D

Incorrect

Selected by: 2%

  1. No, BF1 itself is the argument’s only conclusion.
    The first half is wrong.
  2. No, BF2 supports the argument’s only conclusion.
    The second half is wrong.

Answer Choice: E

Correct

Selected by: 68%

  1. Yes, BF1 is the argument’s only explicit conclusion.
  2. Yes, the second is indeed a premise supporting that conclusion.

This answer choice fits with my analysis of the passage above. Both halves are correct. This is the correct answer.

If you have any doubts regarding any part of this solution, please feel free to ask in the comments section.

Anish Passi

GMAT Coach

With over a decade of GMAT training experience, top 1 percentile scores on the CAT and GMAT, and a passion for teaching, I’d like to believe I am quite qualified to be a GMAT coach. GMAT is learnable, and I help students master the GMAT through a process-oriented approach based on logic and common sense. I offer private tutoring and live-online classroom courses. My sessions are often sprinkled with real-world examples, references to movies, and jokes that only I find funny. You’ve been warned 🙂

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