Logical reasoning PrepTest 106 · Section 1 · Question 25

Question prompt

McKinley: A double–blind study, Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: D

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Argument or Facts

Argument/Argument

Valid or Flawed

Valid/Flawed

Question Type

Misinterpretation Questions

Stimulus Summary

M: Double-blind studies (no one knows whether a subject is getting the real drug) are best, but this drug will have noticeable effects, so we can’t do a double-blind study.
E: You’re assuming that the drug works, so your argument is invalid.

Answer Anticipation

For Misinterpretation questions, we need to figure out what about the initial argument the second speaker is misunderstanding. A good starting point for that is to see what elements of the first argument the second speaker is even addressing!
Here, Engle claims that McKinley can’t draw the conclusion that a double-blind study won’t work at this point, so he’s definitely addressing her conclusion. Why does he think she’s too hasty in reaching her conclusion?
Because she’s assuming what the outcome of the study will be. Well, let’s start there - what is the study meant to figure out? Whether or not a certain drug works for a given disease. So if McKinley is assuming the outcome, then she’s assuming that the drug will or won’t work, and since she’s assuming that there will be noticeable effects, Engle must believe that McKinley is assuming the drug will work.
Is that what she’s claiming? Not at all! She’s claiming the drug will have “various effects” which will make the researchers aware who is getting the actual drug and who is getting the placebo. That’s not claiming the drug will work against the disease, just that it’ll have some type of effect. It can be known what the side effects are of a drug before it’s fully tested against the disease!
So Engle is mistaking McKinley’s claim to be about whether the drug will work, whereas McKinley is just claiming that it’ll have some noticeable effects. Let’s find an answer that gets at this misinterpretation.

Answer choices

  1. A
    presuming that a double–blind Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    Engle doesn’t speak to the effectiveness of the test of the new drugs, just whether the researchers will be able to notice effects.
  2. B
    denying that the drug Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    If anything, Engle believes McKinley is assuming the drug will be effective since she claims there will be noticeable effects!
  3. C
    presuming that the placebo Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Engle doesn’t address the placebo at all, and there’s no reason to believe he thinks McKinley believes they will have no effect on the body - just different enough effects to tell the patients apart.
  4. D
    referring to the drug's Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D matches the stem
    This answer gets at the misinterpretation made by Engle. When Engle says that McKinley is assuming the outcome of the study, he means she’s assuming that the drug will work, thus leading to noticeable effects. When McKinley talks about noticeable effects, she means anything that would let them know who is taking the drug - including side effects.
  5. E
    based on a confusion Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    Engle’s rebuttal questions the timing of drawing a conclusion about a drug, not when the drug actually works.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 6%
  2. B 9%
  3. C 22%
  4. D Credited 55%
  5. E 8%

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