Passage is mainly concerned with the diagnosis of a cough
Starts with stating how a common cough is yet how difficult it is to diagnose. It does so by presenting the various possible reasons for showing the symptoms of a cough and also suggest that a proper diagnosis is essential as some of the underlying causes of a cough could be lethal.
Second passage details the way a physician could overcome this hurdle of diagnosis by looking at patient history, conducting patient interviews and further tests etc. if such preliminary efforts do not yield a satisfactory explanation to cough.
The primary purpose of this passage is toa) discuss the various causes of the common cough.
too detailed to be the primary purposeb) emphasize the primary importance of medical tests in diagnosing a cough.
again, too detailed and medical tests only have partial importance according to the passage.c) propose an effective diagnosis framework for an enigmatic and potentially lethal health condition.
Perfect - the passage starts with why an effective framework is necessary and ends with suggesting one.d) demonstrate the inherent difficultly of diagnosing a patient who presents with a cough.
TRAP - this is the first half - does not capture the complete picture and hence cannot be the main pointe) show the benefits of a cough's successful diagnosis.
The benefits are implicit and are not shown. They are not even the point under consideration.Need to understand the scope of the passage and also the tone of the author to be able to answer such open-ended questions.The author of the passage would most likely agree with which of the following statements?a) A cough is most often caused by environmental factors.
Completely opposite of what is conveyed in the passageb) Coughs caused by lung-related maladies pose a more serious health risk and require more urgent diagnosis.
Not at all true as per passage, the passage also talks about a condition of the heart that causes a cough.c) Doctors who do not interview patients never recognize coughing as a symptom of a virus or an allergic reaction.
TRAP - words from passage are picked but "Never recognize" is too extreme and hence this could be the what the author believes. d) Doctors who interview their patients may be more likely to correctly identify life-threatening conditions.
Perfect - this is mentioned in the passage and the option is worded in a moderate way.e) Interviews alone are more successful tools for diagnosis than medical techniques or instruments.
Again, "interviews alone" is extreme. Interviews are just one of the steps in the diagnosis procedure.
Need to understand the flow of information in the passageThe author includes the first paragraph in order to:a) List the most common causes of coughs.
TRAP - this is what the paragraph does but not what the author intends to convey, we need to look at it from the main point perspective. b) Establish the challenge facing medical professionals in diagnosing the cause of a coughing.
Perfect - this is established and the rest of the passage talks about remedies to this challenge.c) Demonstrate that the common cough is actually one of the most serious existing medical conditions.
Nonsensical.d) List the diagnostic techniques available to the medical community.
Too open-ended and diagnostic techniques are discussed mainly in the second paragraphe) Capture the uniformity of the underlying roots of coughing spells.
Again, 180 opposite. There is no uniformity in causes.Hope my comments are useful.