Critical Reasoning

Q27:
Though sucking zinc lozenges has been promoted as a treatment for the common cold,
research has revealed no consistent effect. Recently, however, a zinc gel applied nasally
has been shown to greatly reduce the duration of colds. Since the gel contains zinc in the
same form and concentration as the lozenges, the greater effectiveness of the gel must be
due to the fact that cold viruses tend to concentrate in the nose, not the mouth.
In order to evaluate the argument, it would be most helpful to determine which of the
following?
A. Whether zinc is effective only against colds, or also has an effect on other virally
caused diseases
B. Whether there are remedies that do not contain zinc but that, when taken orally,
can reduce the duration of colds
C. Whether people who frequently catch colds have a zinc deficiency
D. Whether either the zinc gel or the lozenges contain ingredients that have an
impact on the activity of the zinc
E. Whether the zinc gel has an effect on the severity of cold symptoms, as well as on
their duration
Answer: will give later on...thanx

B and D are the only ones that seem reasonable.
B is out of scope.

Hence D

OA please

Using POE, I decide for D.

Jimat wrote:Using POE, I decide for D.

what is POE

process of elimination.

Sometime you don't know what the correct answer is. So, you eliminate the wrong ones until you have the correct answer remaining. This is very effective strategy to improve your score.

IMO the answer should be B.
As per the statement- "the greater effectiveness of the gel must be
due to the fact that cold viruses tend to concentrate in the nose, not the mouth"
According to B if there are remedies which can reduce the duration of colds when taken orally ; then the statement regarding zinc gel's effectiveness may not be true as it states that cold viruses tend to concentrate in the nose.

Please correct me If I am wrong

IMO..B...If there is any other element apart from Zinc, if taken orally makes cold better then the conclusion that cold viruses are concentrated in nose is weakened..hence it is imp to get the answer to this question...

OA Please?

Please do not post question if you do not know the OA...it creates a confusion among community

can anybody please explain the question ?

is it trying to weakening the conclusion????

neeraj_99 wrote:Q27:
Though sucking zinc lozenges has been promoted as a treatment for the common cold,
research has revealed no consistent effect. Recently, however, a zinc gel applied nasally
has been shown to greatly reduce the duration of colds. Since the gel contains zinc in the
same form and concentration as the lozenges, the greater effectiveness of the gel must be
due to the fact that cold viruses tend to concentrate in the nose, not the mouth.
In order to evaluate the argument, it would be most helpful to determine which of the
following?
A. Whether zinc is effective only against colds, or also has an effect on other virally
caused diseases
B. Whether there are remedies that do not contain zinc but that, when taken orally,
can reduce the duration of colds
C. Whether people who frequently catch colds have a zinc deficiency
D. Whether either the zinc gel or the lozenges contain ingredients that have an
impact on the activity of the zinc
E. Whether the zinc gel has an effect on the severity of cold symptoms, as well as on
their duration
Answer: will give later on...thanx

We sometimes call this type of question "relevant information".

Relevant information questions are a hybrid str/wkn question type. What we're really asked to determine is which answer choice is most inside the scope of the stimulus.

The choices are almost always questions. In the correct choice, one answer to the question will strengthen the argument and the opposite answer will weaken the argument. The 4 wrong choices will all be outside the scope (i.e. irrelevant).

In the question quoted above, we're trying to figure out why the gel is more effective than the lozenge. The author's explanation focuses on where cold viruses congregate. In any argument in which an author is explaining a phenomenon, we should always wonder if there are any other viable explanations.

Answer (D) addresses that last point, raising the possibility that there are other factors responsible for the difference in effectiveness of the two remedies.

If the gel/lozenge DO contain ingredients that impact the effectiveness of the zinc, the author's argument is weakened, since those ingredients could be responsible for the difference in effectiveness.

if the gel/lozenge DO NOT contain such ingredients, the author's argument is weakened, since we've eliminated another possible explanation.

(B) is outside the scope - we don't really care if there are any non-zinc effective oral remedies, since we have no clue how they work (for all we know, those oral remedies shoot antibiotics up into your nasal passage).

B seems good