PrepTest 137

Incorrect. The concerns are about the impact the tea has on the effect of a certain medicine, not its healthfulness, so this answer is out of scope.

Incorrect. The second set of recommendations involved not drinking the tea, so the doctor must have believed it was preventing the medicine from taking effect. That doesn't undermine the negative effect of the tea on the medication.

Incorrect. The second set of recommendations don't support that the tea was responsible for the lack of effect since the medicine was still ineffective despite cutting the tea out.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Methods of Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
Phenomenon - A patient was prescribed a medication but didn't get better
Hypothesis - The dosage was too low
Trial 1 - Double the dosage
Result - No change
New info - The patient is drinking tea that stops the medicine from working
Trial 2 - Original dosage, no tea
Result 2 - No change
Trial 3 - Double dosage, no tea
Result - Symptoms gone!
Conclusion - The initial hypothesis was correct

Answer Anticipation:
What a roller coaster!

Let's start with the question stem. It asks us how ("the manner in which") the second set of recommendations strengthens the initial hypothesis, so this is a Methods of Reasoning question.

And it specifically asks about the second set of recommendations—that was when she recommended that the patient take the original dosage without the tea that stops the medicine from working. How does that play into the hypothesis that the initial dosage was too low?

Well, when the medicine didn't work at first, the doctor recommended doubling the dosage. When she learned, however, that the patient was drinking the tea, there were two raised explanations for the failure of the medicine to work—either the dosage was too low, or the dosage was just right and the tea was preventing it from working.

If the doctor, after learning of the tea, recommended keeping the high dosage while no longer drinking the tea, then the symptoms disappearing wouldn't have told us anything about the initial dosage! Maybe, without the tea, the original dose would have worked, but we wouldn't know because the patient was only off of the tea when taking the double dose.

By having the patient take the original dosage without the tea, the doctor established that the original dose—even without the tea getting in the way—wasn't sufficient to cure the illness. This allowed a subsequent double of the dosage again (third set of recommendations) to show that it did cure it, supporting the hypothesis that the initial dosage was too low.

It's unclear how the correct answer is going to describe that, but let's head in with this understanding of the argument and match it up to the answers.

Answer Explanation:
This answer highlights how the second set of recommendations plays into support for the hypothesis. If the patient stopped the tea but continued taking the double dose, then it would be possible that the tea was the only thing preventing the medication's effectiveness, and the dosage didn't need to be doubled. By dropping the patient back to the original dosage, the doctor showed that the tea by itself wasn't preventing the medication from taking effect, since no tea at the original dosage also didn't work. This answer correctly describes how the second set of recommendations supports the hypothesis, so it's correct.

Key Takeaway:
Don't feel the need to have a specific anticipation for Methods of Reasoning questions. Understanding how the argument functions is usually enough, and the more complex it is, the less likely you are to have an anticipation that matches how the correct answer ends up describing it.

Incorrect. Since the patient still wasn't cured at this point, that second set of recommendations leaves open the possibility that the medicine isn't the right medicine.