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Passage 41 question#1

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viv_gmat Rising GMAT Star Default Avatar
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Passage 41 question#1 Post Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:57 pm
Elapsed Time: 00:00
  • Lap #[LAPCOUNT] ([LAPTIME])
    Most diseases or conditions improve by themselves, are self-limiting, or
    even if fatal, seldom follow a strictly downward spiral. In each case,
    intervention can appear to be quite efficacious. This becomes all the more
    patent if you assume the point of view of a knowing practitioner of
    fraudulent medicine.

    To take advantage of the natural ups and downs of any disease (as
    well as of any placebo effect), it‘s best to begin your treatment when the
    patient is getting worse. In this way, anything that happens can more
    easily be attributed to your wonderful and probably expensive
    intervention. If the patient improves, you take credit; if he remains
    stable, your treatment stopped his downward course. On the other hand,
    if the patient worsens, the dosage or intensity of the treatment was not
    great enough; if he dies, he delayed too long in coming to you.

    In any case, the few instances in which your intervention is successful
    will likely be remembered (not so few, if the disease in question is selflimiting),
    while the vast majority of failures will be forgotten and buried.
    Chance provides more than enough variation to account for the sprinkling
    of successes that will occur with almost any treatment; indeed, it would
    be a miracle if there weren‘t any ―miracle cures.

    Even in outlandish cases, it‘s often difficult to refute conclusively
    some proposed cure or procedure. Consider a diet doctor who directs his
    patients to consume two whole pizzas, four birch beers, and two pieces of
    cheesecake for every breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and an entire box of
    fig bars with a quart of milk for a bedtime snack, claiming that other
    people have lost six pounds a week on such a regimen. When several
    patients follow his instructions for three weeks, they find they‘ve gained
    about seven pounds each. Have the doctor‘s claims been refuted?

    Not necessarily, since he might respond that a whole host of auxiliary
    understandings weren‘t met: the pizzas had too much sauce, or the
    dieters slept sixteen hours a day, or the birch beer wasn‘t the right
    brand. Number and probability do, however, provide the basis for
    statistics, which, together with logic, constitutes the foundation of the
    scientific method, which will eventually sort matters out if anything can.
    However, just as the existence of pink does not undermine the distinction
    between red and white, and dawn doesn‘t indicate that day and night are
    really the same, this problematic fringe area doesn‘t negate the
    fundamental differences between science and its impostors.

    The philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine ventures even further and
    maintains that experience never forces one to reject any particular belief.
    He views science as an integrated web of interconnecting hypotheses,
    procedures, and formalisms, and argues that any impact of the world on
    the web can be distributed in many different ways. If we‘re willing to
    make drastic enough changes in the rest of the web of our beliefs, the
    argument goes, we can hold to our belief in the efficacy of the above diet,
    or indeed in the validity of any pseudoscience


    Q1. In the context of the passage, its discussion of various medical conditions,
    and the particulars of those conditions, the term self-limiting (lines 15-16)
    refers to medical conditions that:
    A. run a definite course that does not result in the patient‘s death.
    B. impair the patient‘s ability to engage in everyday activities.
    C. have a very high rate of mortality.
    D. never shows improvement.
    E. cannot be cured by medicine

    Can someone please explain the answer.
    OA A

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    cans GMAT Titan
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    Post Wed Jun 01, 2011 4:24 pm
    IMO A
    Quote:
    Most diseases or conditions improve by themselves, are self-limiting, or
    even if fatal, seldom follow a strictly downward spiral.
    this line describes 3 types of diseases - one which improve by themselves, which are self-limiting or which are fatal.
    So it means self-limiting diseases are not fatal. and as they don't improve by themselves, they run a definite course.

    [/quote]

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    viv_gmat Rising GMAT Star Default Avatar
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    Post Thu Jun 02, 2011 8:08 am
    cans wrote:
    IMO A
    Quote:
    Most diseases or conditions improve by themselves, are self-limiting, or
    even if fatal, seldom follow a strictly downward spiral.
    this line describes 3 types of diseases - one which improve by themselves, which are self-limiting or which are fatal.
    So it means self-limiting diseases are not fatal. and as they don't improve by themselves, they run a definite course.

    [/quote]WOw....somehow i missed that part completely...awesome...simple, isn't it?

    krishnasty Really wants to Beat The GMAT!
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    Post Thu Jun 02, 2011 8:36 am
    IMO A

    Quite straight forward question, with easy options.
    time: 03:55

    viv_gmat Rising GMAT Star Default Avatar
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    Post Thu Jun 02, 2011 8:43 am
    krishnasty wrote:
    IMO A

    Quite straight forward question, with easy options.
    time: 03:55
    Good timing..

    hp7390 Just gettin' started!
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    Post Mon Sep 12, 2011 3:39 am
    3. Based on the information in the passage, which of the following opinions
    could most reasonably be ascribed to the author?
    A. Too often nothing truly effective can be done to ameliorate the illness
    of a patient.
    B. There is no way that pseudoscience will ever be eliminated.
    C. Beliefs can be maintained even in the absence of strong supporting
    evidence.
    D. Experience never forces one to reject any particular belief.
    E. Quack doctors should be banned


    Can anyone give an explanation to this question ?

    It is a question following the same passage.
    Thank you

    krishnasty Really wants to Beat The GMAT!
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    Post Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:10 am
    Wats the OA to the third question??
    IMO D...

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    hp7390 Just gettin' started!
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    Post Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:19 am
    Hey Thanks for the Prompt Reply
    As we know this is a passage(41) from RC 99.
    I also think its D.
    But the answer and explanation given in the book Flawed as there is Data from other passage mixed with this question. I'll paste the whole solution here. Acc to it OA is "C".

    3) An inference question: jump to the answer choices. While each of the wrong answer choices can be knocked out quickly as not necessarily following from what the author is arguing, (C) is essentially a paraphrase of the argument made in ¶5.
    (A): Distortion. Though quackery might not be effective, that doesn‘t mean that as a general rule nothing can be done.
    (B): Distortion. While Quine argues this in ¶6, it‘s not the view of the author. Note that at the beginning of ¶6 the author points out that Quine goes ―even fartherâ€- than he.
    (C): The correct answer
    (D): Distortion. Quine again. It‘s crucial to distinguish between what Quine believes and what the author does.
    (E): Banned‘ is extreme language and the author never states this.
    Strategy point:
    Always be sure to distinguish the author's own opinion from opinions of other people to whom the author refers.

    krishnasty Really wants to Beat The GMAT!
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    Post Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:30 am
    I think OA is correct..i had an oversight for this question. If you notice carefully, the author is not Quine. Wat Quine believes is option D. But if we look at the last sentence of the entire paragraph, you would notice wat the author believes...i second that OA should be C and not D.

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    navami GMAT Destroyer!
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    Post Wed Sep 14, 2011 11:24 am
    A it is first paragraph.

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    gunjan1208 GMAT Destroyer! Default Avatar
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    Post Thu Sep 15, 2011 6:37 am
    I also fell for D. But got awesome explanations. Thank you guys.

    vikram4689 GMAT Titan
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    Post Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:30 pm
    ignore this post... error

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    Last edited by vikram4689 on Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:32 pm; edited 2 times in total

    vikram4689 GMAT Titan
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    Post Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:31 pm
    There is NO such construction A, B, or C...
    Sentence describes only 2 type of diseases A or B
    A->improve by themselves, are self-limiting,
    B->if fatal, seldom follow a strictly downward spiral
    Self-limiting improve by themselves(run a definite course) and are not fatal because fatal diseases are described separately

    cans wrote:
    IMO A
    Quote:
    Most diseases or conditions improve by themselves, are self-limiting, or
    even if fatal, seldom follow a strictly downward spiral.
    this line describes 3 types of diseases - one which improve by themselves, which are self-limiting or which are fatal.
    So it means self-limiting diseases are not fatal. and as they don't improve by themselves, they run a definite course.

    [/quote]

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