QUESTION TEXT: In a medical study of all of…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning
CONCLUSION: Many residents don’t remember asking their doctor about severe headaches.
REASONING: 35 people reported asking doctors, but doctors reported 105 visits.
ANALYSIS: There are many other possible reasons why the numbers don’t match.
- Maybe people saw their doctor more than once.
- Maybe doctors’ records are inaccurate.
- Maybe people lied and didn’t want to admit they suffer from headaches.
The right answer uses the first reason.
Watch out – questions often pretend that two things are the same when they’re not. The first number is the number of people who reported visits. The second number is the number of visits. People aren’t visits.
Most of the wrong answers only make sense if you completely misunderstand the situation. For any question, if you’re confused by the situation in the stimulus, reread it. Wrong answers are always designed to further confuse.
___________
- Read the first sentence. The study surveyed all residents. That’s the best possible sample.
- This would make the situation even stranger. The dilemma is that doctors reported 105 visits from residents, while only 35 people went to see their doctor. If some of those people went outside Groverhill, then there’s an even bigger gap.
- CORRECT. If some residents saw their doctors multiple times about headaches, then that could explain the discrepancy.
- The argument didn’t make this claim. It just said there was a discrepancy between the number of residents who saw their doctor and the number of visits.
- Who cares about people who didn’t see their doctor? The argument is talking about people who did go see their doctor.
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