PrepTest 106, Section 3, Question 16
Historian: We can learn about the medical history(94 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(9 more words not shown)
- ANone of the(8 more words not shown)
- BSome people in(6 more words not shown)
- CMercury is an(5 more words not shown)
- DMercury poisoning can(7 more words not shown)
- EBeethoven suffered from(8 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Mercury in the hair might tell us something about exposure. It doesn't immediately tell us why the person encountered mercury, much less what caused a particular illness. Even the Newton example makes me pause: finding mercury and finding psychological problems isn't, by itself, a complete explanation of how one caused the other.
The argument then turns to Beethoven. Mercury was used to treat venereal disease, so the historian thinks finding mercury would establish that the disease caused his deafness. What if he took mercury for something else? Imagine it was also used for another illness. A trace in his hair could then reflect that treatment without showing that he had venereal disease at all.
What we’re looking for
For the necessary assumption, I'd expect something ruling out an alternative reason for the mercury. But the answer only has to be something this argument needs; it doesn't have to repair every problem in one sentence. Ask whether the proposed assumption is required for mercury to serve as the evidence the historian wants.
Working the answers
- A
Some mercury could leave the body while a trace remained in the hair. Imagine most of it being eliminated and only a small amount remaining detectable. The argument doesn't require every bit to stay forever. It only proposes drawing a conclusion if researchers find a trace.
- BCorrect
This is less specific than my prediction. Suppose everyone in Beethoven's time ingested mercury. Then having ingested it wouldn't distinguish Beethoven from anyone else or single out venereal disease as the explanation. Finding a trace would lose the diagnostic significance the historian gives it.
The argument therefore needs at least some people not to have ingested mercury. That doesn't prove that Beethoven took it for venereal disease, or that the disease caused his deafness. It preserves a distinction the argument requires without fixing all of its remaining gaps.
- C
A treatment can be used even if it doesn't work. The historian relies on mercury having been given for this disease, not on its actually curing the disease. People could have believed in an ineffective treatment and left the same chemical evidence.
- D
The proposed cause of the deafness is venereal disease. Mercury is being used as evidence that Beethoven had that disease. D makes mercury poisoning itself a possible cause of deafness, which is a different explanation. The historian doesn't need that claim; it could complicate the attempt to identify the disease as the cause.
- E
Newton's psychological problems introduce the general idea of using hair analysis. Beethoven's case concerns deafness. The historian doesn't need Beethoven to have suffered equally severe psychological problems, or any such problems, to make the particular inference about his hair and hearing.
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