PrepTest 107, Section 1, Question 15
Ordinary mountain sickness, a common condition among mountain(74 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(8 more words not shown)
- AThe treatment for(10 more words not shown)
- BCerebral edema can(15 more words not shown)
- CUnlike cerebral edema,(12 more words not shown)
- DShortage of oxygen(15 more words not shown)
- EMost people who(10 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What if someone mistakes the dangerous condition for ordinary mountain sickness and tries to push through? That would make the similar symptoms a serious concern. Ordinary mountain sickness is common at high altitudes, and most people can recover from it. Cerebral edema is rarer and can quickly become life-threatening without the correct treatment. If the symptoms look familiar, a climber might dismiss a dangerous case as something routine.
But perhaps climbers know to be cautious. Someone might say, 'This could be ordinary mountain sickness, but let's take it seriously anyway.' Similar symptoms don't automatically tell us how people will respond. My initial concern is whether the resemblance actually leads people to miss the care they need.
What we’re looking for
The necessary-assumption question asks what the argument relies on. The reasoning links similar symptoms with special danger at high altitude, so we need something that makes confusing the conditions matter. We shouldn't simply pick another alarming fact about cerebral edema; it has to support this particular connection.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The treatments differ. This gets at why the confusion could be dangerous, even when the person does receive care for what appears to be ordinary mountain sickness.
Suppose the treatment were the same. A climber could be mistakenly diagnosed with ordinary mountain sickness and still receive exactly the care needed for cerebral edema. The mistaken label would not, by itself, explain the additional danger. The argument relies on treating one condition as the other being consequential, which requires a difference in the treatment needed.
- B
We are told cerebral edema can quickly become life-threatening. We aren't told it causes a coma, much less one within a particular number of hours. The argument doesn't need that specific outcome to explain why missing the correct treatment is dangerous.
- C
Ordinary mountain sickness could involve some disruption of blood circulation in the brain too, perhaps a less serious one. Nothing in the reasoning requires a complete absence of that feature. The problem is confusing the conditions and their care, not proving they share no underlying feature.
- D
The symptoms could be misleading even to someone whose thinking wasn't impaired by altitude. A person might reasonably recognize familiar symptoms without realizing a rarer condition is present. The argument doesn't require oxygen shortage to cause errors in judgment; the symptom overlap provides a possible source of confusion on its own.
- E
Saying most people recover doesn't tell us that they recover without special treatment. They might need substantial care and still recover. The argument relies on a consequential difference between the two conditions' treatment, not on ordinary mountain sickness requiring no special care at all.
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