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Food poisoning

by prepgmat09 » Mon Jul 12, 2010 9:34 am
During the past week, 120 RamTech Corporation employees have reported symptoms of a strain of food poisoning known as disporella, but only eight of these employees have tested positive for the strain. A RamTech spokesperson claims that the apparent outbreak of disporella can be attributed to contaminated food served two weeks ago at the company's annual employee picnic.

Which of the following, if true, would most support the claim made by the RamTech spokesperson above?

(A) Disporella symptoms generally last only a few days.
(B) RamTech's cafeteria facilities provide lunch to Ram-Tech employees during every workday.
(C) People with disporella do not generally test positive for disporella until at least one week after disporella symptoms begin to occur.
(D) People with disporella often do not exhibit disporella symptoms until more than a week after contracting disporella.
(E) A person can test positive for disporella without exhibiting symptoms of disporella.
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by debmalya_dutta » Mon Jul 12, 2010 9:49 am
Past week , 120 employess reported symptoms of disporella, but only 8 tested positive.
Conclusion - can be attributed to contaminated food served two weeks ago at the company's annual employee picnic
Rephrasing -
So , if the contaminated food was served 2 weeks ago, and it takes more than a week to actually test positive for the disporella strain, it explains why only 8 of the 120 employees tested positive.

Hence I would opt for C.

What's the OA?
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by prepgmat09 » Mon Jul 12, 2010 10:01 am
debmalya_dutta wrote:Past week , 120 employess reported symptoms of disporella, but only 8 tested positive.
Conclusion - can be attributed to contaminated food served two weeks ago at the company's annual employee picnic
Rephrasing -
So , if the contaminated food was served 2 weeks ago, and it takes more than a week to actually test positive for the disporella strain, it explains why only 8 of the 120 employees tested positive.

Hence I would opt for C.

What's the OA?
Please let us have some more brainstorming on all choices.. I would post OA later.
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by reply2spg » Mon Jul 12, 2010 10:45 am
Most contenders are C and D, and I opt for D. I ruled out C because it is not mentioned when ppl found positive for disporella. However, it is clearly mentioned that ppl report symptom in past week and as per the spokeperson it is after a week.
prepgmat09 wrote:During the past week, 120 RamTech Corporation employees have reported symptoms of a strain of food poisoning known as disporella, but only eight of these employees have tested positive for the strain. A RamTech spokesperson claims that the apparent outbreak of disporella can be attributed to contaminated food served two weeks ago at the company's annual employee picnic.

Which of the following, if true, would most support the claim made by the RamTech spokesperson above?

(A) Disporella symptoms generally last only a few days.
(B) RamTech's cafeteria facilities provide lunch to Ram-Tech employees during every workday.
(C) People with disporella do not generally test positive for disporella until at least one week after disporella symptoms begin to occur.
(D) People with disporella often do not exhibit disporella symptoms until more than a week after contracting disporella.
(E) A person can test positive for disporella without exhibiting symptoms of disporella.
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by outreach » Mon Jul 12, 2010 11:00 am
arg says -> last week people reported symptoms of disporella
spokesperson says - it is because of food served 2 weeks back

c and d come close
c is incorrect because it says that people will test positive one week after disporella symptoms occur. but the arg says that among people with symptoms of disporella 8 tested positive. no time period is mentioned

D is correct
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by debmalya_dutta » Mon Jul 12, 2010 11:37 am
Question Stem: Which of the following, if true, would most support the claim made by the RamTech spokesperson above?
A RamTech spokesperson claims that the apparent outbreak of disporella can be attributed to contaminated food served two weeks ago at the company's annual employee picnic.

But the fact stated is -120 RamTech Corporation employees have reported symptoms of a strain of food poisoning known as disporella, but only eight of these employees have tested positive for the strain .

(A) Disporella symptoms generally last only a few days.
"Few days" is inconclusive. It can mean 1 days or 200 days

(B) RamTech's cafeteria facilities provide lunch to Ram-Tech employees during every workday.
Out of scope because there is no mention of RamTech's cafeteria

(C) People with disporella do not generally test positive for disporella until at least one week after disporella symptoms begin to occur.
So , if the contaminated food was served 2 weeks ago, and it takes 1week or more to actually test positive for the disporella strain, it explains why only 8 of the 120 employees tested positive in the last week after consuming the contaminated food at the picnic 2 weeks ago

(D) People with disporella often do not exhibit disporella symptoms until more than a week after contracting disporella.
So, if this is true it means that a person first contracts disporella and then displays the symptoms. This would not explain why 120 reported symptoms and only 8 employees tested positive. If this statement was true, then everyone should have tested positive
(E) A person can test positive for disporella without exhibiting symptoms of disporella.
This does nothing to resolve the anomaly-120 reported symptoms and only 8 employees tested positive.

Hence I went with Option C
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by prepgmat09 » Tue Jul 13, 2010 10:07 am
debmalya_dutta wrote:Question Stem: Which of the following, if true, would most support the claim made by the RamTech spokesperson above?
A RamTech spokesperson claims that the apparent outbreak of disporella can be attributed to contaminated food served two weeks ago at the company's annual employee picnic.

But the fact stated is -120 RamTech Corporation employees have reported symptoms of a strain of food poisoning known as disporella, but only eight of these employees have tested positive for the strain .

(A) Disporella symptoms generally last only a few days.
"Few days" is inconclusive. It can mean 1 days or 200 days

(B) RamTech's cafeteria facilities provide lunch to Ram-Tech employees during every workday.
Out of scope because there is no mention of RamTech's cafeteria

(C) People with disporella do not generally test positive for disporella until at least one week after disporella symptoms begin to occur.
So , if the contaminated food was served 2 weeks ago, and it takes 1week or more to actually test positive for the disporella strain, it explains why only 8 of the 120 employees tested positive in the last week after consuming the contaminated food at the picnic 2 weeks ago

(D) People with disporella often do not exhibit disporella symptoms until more than a week after contracting disporella.
So, if this is true it means that a person first contracts disporella and then displays the symptoms. This would not explain why 120 reported symptoms and only 8 employees tested positive. If this statement was true, then everyone should have tested positive
(E) A person can test positive for disporella without exhibiting symptoms of disporella.
This does nothing to resolve the anomaly-120 reported symptoms and only 8 employees tested positive.

Hence I went with Option C
OA is D. The official explanation is as follows:
The argument relies on the unstated assumption that no other event since the picnic could have caused the outbreak instead. Statement (D) provides some evidence that the employees who have reported disporella symptoms in fact contracted disporella at least one week ago. Accordingly, (D) helps support the claim that it was the food served at the picnic two weeks ago that caused the outbreak. Admittedly, (D) would provide even stronger support if it indicated that symptoms never appear until one week after contamination. Nevertheless, (D) is the best of the five answer choices.
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