PrepTest 105, Section 2, Question 23
Chronic back pain is usually caused by a(71 more words not shown)
The statements above, if true,(8 more words not shown)
- AFour out of(17 more words not shown)
- BPeople who exercise(15 more words not shown)
- CPatients rarely suffer(18 more words not shown)
- DDoctors can accurately(16 more words not shown)
- EThere is a(22 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A damaged disk doesn't necessarily mean pain right now, or even pain later. The passage says about one in five people over 30 has this kind of damage without chronic symptoms. That is a count of people with silent damage, not a promise that all of them will eventually suffer.
The last sentence gives us something more useful than a prediction of inevitable pain. When chronic pain does develop in these cases, insufficient exercise generally causes muscles to deteriorate, and that deterioration brings on the pain. So a lack of exercise can help turn an existing problem into a painful one.
What we’re looking for
The question asks what these statements most strongly support. My first thought is that maintaining those muscles through exercise could help delay or prevent that progression. That's a possibility supported by the described cause, not a guarantee of a pain-free future for everybody.
Working the answers
- A
The one-in-five figure doesn't divide people into “will have chronic pain” and “will never have chronic pain.” It identifies people who currently have damaged disks without chronic symptoms. The other four-fifths could include people who already have chronic pain, people who will later develop disk damage, and people with other sources of pain.
Nothing here gives four out of five people a lifelong guarantee. “Usually caused” also leaves room for causes other than the disk problems described.
- B
Regular exercise is not presented as a guarantee against every cause of chronic back pain. The passage describes what generally leads to pain in a particular group of people with damaged disks. It does not say that this is the only route to pain, or that exercise always blocks it. “Sure to be free” goes well beyond the supported possibility of prevention.
- C
Chronic symptoms and mild, fleeting pain aren't the same thing. A disk might cause a brief ache when first damaged and then produce no chronic symptoms for years. The passage's delay between damage and chronic pain doesn't tell us how often that brief initial discomfort occurs.
- D
Knowing a general cause doesn't establish doctors' ability to predict each individual's future. We aren't told how accurately doctors can assess the relevant damage, future exercise, muscle deterioration, or other causes of pain. Their prediction ability remains unknown; the passage doesn't prove that they have it or that they lack it.
- ECorrect
The passage points to insufficient exercise as a cause of the muscle deterioration that generally brings on pain in the described cases. That supports a strategy of maintaining those muscles to interrupt or delay the progression.
Notice the modest claim: there is a strategy that can be effective. It doesn't promise that exercise repairs every damaged disk or prevents every kind of back pain. Unlike B's guarantee, it leaves room for the other causes and exceptions that the passage allows.
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