A certain drug, when taken by patients with high blood pressure, was found to lower blood pressure to high-normal levels, or from an average of 30 percent to an average of 10 percent above normal. However, a survey of patients with normal blood pressure found that almost 80 percent exercised at least 5 days per week for 30 minutes and maintained a normal blood pressure. Therefore, the drug is not as effective in reducing blood pressure in patients with high blood pressure as is exercise.
The validity of the above conclusion depends on the truth of which of the following?

A. Frequent exercise has the same effect on blood pressure in all patients.
B. No patient with high blood pressure successfully achieved below-normal levels with the drug alone.
C. Patients with normal blood pressure maintained healthy diets for the duration of the study.
D. Few of the patients with high blood pressure exercise regularly.
E. The drug has little or no effect on patients with normal blood pressure.

in order to conclusively prove that exercise is more effective than the drug in keep bp under check we must create two samples of people - one who exercise and dont take drug and the other who dont exercise but take the drug. Then we should compare their blood pressures. If "normal" people tend to maintain healthy bp with exercise and those who take drug are not able to bring their bp to normal levels - it shows that the drug has failed to be effective.

I chose D purely by elimination because the other choices were making no sense. In fact I believe its a poor quality question because we cannot logically compare healthy people who dont have bp to those who have --- those with BP may or may not respond to exercise in the same way as normal people do (for whom exercise alone may be sufficient to maintain healthy bp).

A is too strong to be a correct GMAT answer, IMO.

Hi Testluv
Thanks. How do you this is assumption question? Sorry I think I missed the type of Q. Can you please elaborate?

Here are a few examples of questions that signal an assumption question:
Which of the following is an assumption on which this argument depends?
The explanation above assumes that......
Which of the following is an assumption made in drawing the conclusion above?
The conclusion drawn above is based on the assumption that

Testluv wrote:

As another poster pointed out, choice A is extreme for an assumption question.

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Hi,

great questions guys! Let's start with nusmavrik's:



Because the question stem asks for something that the conclusion's validity DEPENDS on. An idea on which a conclusion depends is a necessary assumption. Let me know if you seek further elaboration

Here are dwivedys' questions:



That would indeed be a conundrum. Fortunately, we don't have to deal with it. The author's evidence already established that this group of high-blood pressure-patients' reduced their blood pressure by taking the drug. Thus, their blood pressure was high UNTIL they took the drug.

Now, if we learn that (many of) the high-blood-pressure patients were also regular exercisers (as per the denial of choice D), then we know that this group of patients had high blood pressure even though they are regular exercisers. Basically, we'd have a group of people who exercised regularly and who had high blood pressure who then alleviated their high blood pressure by taking the drug. That seriously damages the author's argument that the drug is not as effective as regular exercise.



As always, we have to attach a commonsense interpretation given the context of the argument. Look at the first sentence: "a certain drug...was found to lower blood pressure". Thus, the only thing the author could possibly intend to mean when he claims that the drug is "not as effective" as exercise is that exercise is better at lowering blood pressure.



I don't see any design flaws with this question!
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