PrepTest 150, Section 3, Question 12
Doctor: There will be more local cases of(33 more words not shown)
The conclusion of the doctor’s(13 more words not shown)
- AEffective approaches have(14 more words not shown)
- BIt is rare(7 more words not shown)
- CThe new strain(21 more words not shown)
- DThe new strain(18 more words not shown)
- EThere will be(20 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Having more strains of flu doesn't automatically mean more cases of flu.
Keep the conclusion local: the doctor predicts more infections in this area, not necessarily in the whole country. A new strain has infected some local people, but that doesn't tell us how many infections the older strains will cause. Perhaps people now have immunity to an older strain and cases from that strain fall. The new cases could replace only some of the cases that disappear.
What we’re looking for
We're asked to make the conclusion follow. I'd look for a connection that makes adding this strain add to the total, instead of being offset by fewer infections from the old strains. Counting varieties of flu isn't enough; we need to control what happens to the number of cases.
Working the answers
- A
Effective approaches for the old strains could reduce infections from those strains. That makes the missing issue more pressing: the new cases might not outweigh the decrease. A doesn't establish the predicted increase in total cases.
- B
Whether new strains are rare doesn't change the fact that one has appeared here and infected some people. We need to know the effect on the total, not how unusual the arrival was. A rare event can happen without guaranteeing a particular change in that total.
- C
Even if the old approaches don't work on the new strain, infections from the old strains could decline sharply. Also, this doesn't say the new strain cannot be addressed by any other approach. C leaves the number of old-strain cases unresolved and doesn't establish that the combined total must rise.
- D
More dangerous doesn't mean more numerous. A strain could cause more severe illness while infecting relatively few people. The conclusion is about how many local cases there will be, not how serious each case is.
- ECorrect
This prevents the old-strain total from dropping and canceling out the additional infections.
Suppose there were 1,000 cases last year. With no decline in cases from those old strains, there will be at least 1,000 such cases this year. Add the cases already caused by the new strain, and the total is greater than 1,000. The same reasoning works whatever last year's number was. E says no decline, so the old-strain count could even increase; we don't need it to stay exactly the same.
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