Physician: The Hormone Melatonin Has Shown Promise as a Medication for Sleep Disorders When Taken in Synthesized Form.

Question: Physician: The hormone melatonin has shown promise as a medication for sleep disorders when taken in synthesized form. Because the long-term side effects of synthetic melatonin are unknown, however, I cannot recommend its use at this time.

Patient: Your position is inconsistent with your usual practice. You prescribe many medications that you know have serious side effects, so concern about side effects cannot be the real reason you will not prescribe melatonin.

The patient's argument is flawed because it fails to consider that

(A) the side effects of synthetic melatonin might be different from those of naturally produced melatonin
(B) it is possible that the physician does not believe that melatonin has been conclusively shown to be effective
(C) sleep disorders, if left untreated, might lead to serious medical complications
(D) the side effects of a medication can take some time to manifest themselves
(E) known risks can be weighed against known benefits, but unknown risks cannot

“Physician: The hormone melatonin has shown promise as a medication for sleep disorders when taken in synthesized form.”- this is a GMAT critical reasoning passage with answers. This particular GMAT critical reasoning topic has been taken from the book “Official Guide for GMAT Verbal Review 2018.”

Candidates need a strong knowledge of English GMAT critical reasoning. This GMAT critical reasoning question consists of a comprehension question and 4 options to choose from. The GMAT critical reasoning questions are designed for the purpose of testing candidates’ abilities in understanding, analyzing, and applying information or concepts.

Answer: E

Explanation: This is a GMAT critical reasoning question. We have to select the option that is the reason why the above argument is flawed.

Let’s go through each of the available options and choose the most suitable one.

Option A: the side effects of synthetic melatonin might be different from those of naturally produced melatonin.
This option is incorrect because it talks about naturally produced melatonin. The argument says nothing about the side effects of naturally produced melatonin. So, its comparison with synthetic melatonin is out of scope. Option A is incorrect.

Option B: it is possible that the physician does not believe that melatonin has been conclusively shown to be effective.
This option is incorrect. It states that the physician believes that melatonin is not effective. However, the argument clearly says that the hormone melatonin has shown promise as a medication for sleep disorders when taken in synthesised form. So, Option B is incorrect.

Option C: sleep disorders, if left untreated, might lead to serious medical complications.
This option is incorrect because it has nothing to do with the argument presented in the above passage. It may or may not be true that if sleep disorders are left untreated, they can lead to medical complications. Since it is irrelevant to the argument, Option C is incorrect.

Option D: the side effects of a medication can take some time to manifest themselves.
This option is incorrect because the time taken by the medication is not mentioned in the argument. We are only talking about the flaws in the patient’s argument. It has nothing to do with the time of action of the medication prescribed. So, Option D is incorrect.

Option E: known risks can be weighed against known benefits, but unknown risks cannot.
This option is correct because the physician has been already providing medicines to the patients because he was aware of the side effects and their magnitude. But because melatonin has no known side effects, the physician is not recommending it as it may harm the patients. So, Option E is correct.

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