Mountain sickness

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Mountain sickness

by neoreaves » Sun Apr 11, 2010 1:08 am
Ordinary mountain sickness, a common condition among mountain clumbers, and one from which most people can recover, is caused by the characteristic shortage of oxygen in the atmosphere at high altitudes. Cerebral edema, a rarer disruption of blood circulation in the brain that quickly becomes life-threatening if not correctly trated from its onset, can also be caused by a shortage of oxygen. Since the symptoms of cerebral edema resemle those of ordinary mountain sickness, cerebral edema is especially dangerous at high altitudes.

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
A. The treatment for ordinary mountain sickness differs from the treatment for cerebral edema.
B. Cerebral edema can cause those who suffer from it to slip into coma within a few hours.
C. Unlike cerebral edema, ordinary mountain sickness involves no disruption of blood circulation in the brain.
D. Shortage of oxygen at extremely high altitude is likely to affect thinking processes and cause errors of judgement.
E. Most people who suffer from ordinary mountain sickness recover without any special treatment.

Source: LSAT PrepTests
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by V_P » Sun Apr 11, 2010 1:50 am
Is C the correct answer.

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by Phirozz » Sun Apr 11, 2010 2:00 am
IMO A.

One may think that one is suffering from ordinary mountain sickness instead of cerebral edema. If the treatments required for both are similar, then cerebral edema wont be more dangerous than mountain sickness.

So to correctly infer that cerebral edema is more dangerous at high altitudes, we need to assume that treatments for both are not same.

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by paddle_sweep » Sun Apr 18, 2010 7:26 am
Please post the OA. Is it "A"?

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by aspirant2010 » Sun Apr 18, 2010 9:51 am
Hi,one more vote for C....please post the OA.....

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by grockit_andrea » Sun Apr 18, 2010 10:46 am
I'm going to say A. The conclusion here is "cerebral edema is especially dangerous at high altitudes," and the unstated assumption is that since cerebral edema resembles ordinary mountain sickness, people with cerebral edema may not get the treatment they need, because they may assume that what they have is ordinary mountain sickness. That's where A comes in; if A weren't true, and the treatments were actually the same, then cerebral edema sufferers would be correctly treated whether or not their condition was correctly diagnosed.
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