OG problem 152

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OG problem 152

by hey_thr67 » Wed Jun 06, 2012 9:15 pm
Mouth cancer is a danger for people who rarely brush their teeth. In order to achieve early detection of mouth cancer in these individuals, a town's public health officials sent a pamphlet to all town residents, describing how to perform weekly self-examinations of the mouth for lumps.

Which of the following, if true, is the best criticism of the pamphlet as a method of achieving the public health officials' goal?


(A) Many dental diseases produce symptoms that cannot be detected in a weekly self-examination.
(B) Once mouth cancer has been detected, the effectiveness of treatment can vary from person to person.
C: The pamphlet was sent to all town residents, including those individuals who brush their teeth regularly.
(D) Mouth cancer is much more common in adults than in children.
E: People who rarely brush their teeth are unlikely to perform a weekly examination of their mouth.

Will post OA after some replies.
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by Ashujain » Thu Jun 07, 2012 1:27 am
hey_thr67 wrote:Mouth cancer is a danger for people who rarely brush their teeth. In order to achieve early detection of mouth cancer in these individuals, a town's public health officials sent a pamphlet to all town residents, describing how to perform weekly self-examinations of the mouth for lumps.

Which of the following, if true, is the best criticism of the pamphlet as a method of achieving the public health officials' goal?


(A) Many dental diseases produce symptoms that cannot be detected in a weekly self-examination.
(B) Once mouth cancer has been detected, the effectiveness of treatment can vary from person to person.
C: The pamphlet was sent to all town residents, including those individuals who brush their teeth regularly.
(D) Mouth cancer is much more common in adults than in children.
E: People who rarely brush their teeth are unlikely to perform a weekly examination of their mouth.

Will post OA after some replies.
IMO: E : It clearly is the best criticism because by sending a pamphlet to all residents the health officials' are expecting people who rarely brush their teeth to perform a weekly examination of their mouth. This scenario is very unlikely as people who can not even brush their teeth will not spend their valuable (:-)) time on perfoming the weekly self-examination.

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by Birottam Dutta » Thu Jun 07, 2012 7:48 am
The answer is E as correctly pointed out by my friend in the above post. Let us go choice wise to see how:

A-- a talks of many mouth diseases but this argument is strictly restricted to mouth cancer, so this is out of scope.
B-- talks of effectiveness of treatment but this passage is only concerned with ways of detection. Hence,cincirrect.
C-- is a reiteration that the pamphlet was sent to all residents of the town.
D-- talks of incidence of mouth cancer in adults being more than that in kids, this again is out of context.
E-- says that people who don't have the time to brush their teeth will not spend time examining their mouths for cancer. If true, this definitely provides the best criticism that the plan will fail for early detection of mouth cancer.

Hope the explanation helps you understand the answer better!