National Health Minister: In November of last year, a rare strain (H4N2v) of influenza was first diagnosed in our country. Since that time, our Centre for Disease Control has surveying doctors to track the virus's progress. For the months of January-March, doctors treated an average of 6,000 cases per month, and then for the months April-June, that figure had risen to 8,500 diseases per month. This past month, the figure surpassed 9,000. We can conclude, then, that an increasing number of people contract the H4N2v strain of the flu each month.
The answer to which of the following questions would be most useful in evaluating the health minister's argument?
(A)Have treatments for the H4N2v virus been successful in curing patients of the ailment?
(B)How many incidences of the H4N2v virus have gone untreated each month?
(C)Is the H4N2v strain of the flu more contagious than more-common strains of the flu?
(D)Are any of the patients who were treated for H4N2v in the April-June period still being treated for the virus this month?
(E)Has the number of diagnosed cases of H4N2v been increasing in neighboring countries?
B
h4n2v
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I was stuck b/w B and D. both are talking almost same thing, just time period is diff. now we have have stats for D only. no stats present for B. so we can not evaluate B, unless we have data.
some how i am making wrong conclusion here. looking forward for some learning here.
Thanks in advance.
some how i am making wrong conclusion here. looking forward for some learning here.
Thanks in advance.
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The big thing to note here is the language shift from premise to conclusion.gkkk wrote:National Health Minister: In November of last year, a rare strain (H4N2v) of influenza was first diagnosed in our country. Since that time, our Centre for Disease Control has surveying doctors to track the virus's progress. For the months of January-March, doctors treated an average of 6,000 cases per month, and then for the months April-June, that figure had risen to 8,500 diseases per month. This past month, the figure surpassed 9,000. We can conclude, then, that an increasing number of people contract the H4N2v strain of the flu each month.
The answer to which of the following questions would be most useful in evaluating the health minister's argument?
(A)Have treatments for the H4N2v virus been successful in curing patients of the ailment?
(B)How many incidences of the H4N2v virus have gone untreated each month?
(C)Is the H4N2v strain of the flu more contagious than more-common strains of the flu?
(D)Are any of the patients who were treated for H4N2v in the April-June period still being treated for the virus this month?
(E)Has the number of diagnosed cases of H4N2v been increasing in neighboring countries?
B
The conclusion: more people are contracting the disease each month
The premise: more people are being treated each month
Imagine that in the first month, 10,000 people have contracted the disease. If that's the case, it's possible that the disease hasn't been spreading at all - it's just that more and more of the initial 10,000 are being treated each month. But if exactly 6000 have contracted the disease initially, and all of those people are getting treated, then we know that more people are getting sick each month, because the number of people treated has increased. So the key piece of info is the number of untreated cases. This is captured in B
Note that D is not talking about untreated cases. It's discussing whether the early cases are continuing to be treated later. But the length of treatment isn't the important variable here. It's whether there are many untreated cases.