PrepTest 137, Section 2, Question 12
When a patient failed to respond to prescribed(89 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(24 more words not shown)
- AThey establish that(12 more words not shown)
- BThey make it(14 more words not shown)
- CThey give evidence(12 more words not shown)
- DThey suggest that(14 more words not shown)
- EThey rule out(15 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Maybe the dose is too low. Or maybe this is the wrong medicine. Giving more of a treatment that doesn't address the illness wouldn't necessarily help.
The first change—doubling the dose—doesn't resolve the symptoms. Then we learn about an herbal beverage that can interfere with the medicine. That gives us another possible explanation. The doctor tries returning to the original dose while removing the beverage, but the symptoms remain. Finally, the patient takes the doubled dose without the beverage, and the symptoms disappear.
I'm still cautious about calling that proof of the original dosage hypothesis. What if the beverage's effects took time to wear off? What if the patient recovered naturally? Those possibilities don't make the results useless, but they remind us that improvement after a change doesn't settle every causal question.
What we’re looking for
The question focuses on the second set of recommendations: original dose, no beverage, still no improvement. Initially, that might make us think we've eliminated the beverage explanation. Let's be more careful about what the failed improvement actually shows. How does it support the idea that the original dose was insufficient?
Working the answers
- A
The issue is whether the beverage interferes with this medication, not whether it is healthy overall. A beverage could have benefits and still interfere with a particular treatment. This trial doesn't establish a general judgment about its healthfulness.
- B
This is tempting if we think, ‘Removing the beverage didn't help, so the beverage wasn't contributing.’ But two problems could need fixing together. Removing one wouldn't necessarily produce improvement while the other remained.
Look at the comparison between the first and final trials: both use the doubled dose, but only the final trial removes the beverage and produces improvement. That is consistent with the beverage contributing. The second trial doesn't undermine that possibility merely because removing the beverage alone wasn't enough.
- C
The second trial doesn't provide evidence that the beverage was responsible. The patient stops drinking it and remains symptomatic at the original dose. That result points us toward something beyond the beverage as an explanation, rather than establishing the beverage as the cause.
- DCorrect
Removing the beverage while keeping the initial dosage still doesn't help. That suggests the beverage wasn't the whole problem: something else, such as an insufficient dose, remained. This is how the result supports the doctor's initial hypothesis.
‘Not the only cause’ leaves room for the beverage to contribute. It doesn't require us to prove that it did contribute, and it doesn't say the dose was definitely the other problem. It identifies the support supplied by this particular trial without overstating it.
- E
A patient who still doesn't improve at the original dose could still be receiving the wrong medicine. The second trial doesn't rule that out. We don't establish that the medicine is appropriate simply by removing the beverage and observing continued symptoms.
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