Frazier and Mosteller assert that medical research could be improved b

1. The passage is primarily concerned with

(A) identifying two practices in medical research that may affect the accuracy of clinical trials
-“accuracy” is the issue here; that’s never explicitly mentioned
-be careful not to spin the proposal that less information should be collected to mean necessarily that the accuracy would decrease
-besides, even if the first practice of data collection affects accuracy, we can see in the second paragraph that the concern isn’t about accuracy, but the capacity for stratified analyses

(B) describing aspects of medical research that tend to drive up costs
-tempting, but this misses the bigger picture
-the author only highlights the increased costs associated with current data collection practices to underscore why the proposal is warranted

(C) evaluating an analysis of certain shortcomings of current medical research practices
-analysis is a bit of a stretch; this choice is tempting because Frazier and Mosteller do list the negative aspects of two practices: data collection and narrow inclusion criteria, however that’s not the main concern

(D) describing proposed changes to the ways in which clinical trials are conducted Correct

(E) explaining how medical researchers have traditionally conducted clinical trials and how such trials are likely to change
-“likely to change” is the issue here…we have no idea how likely the proposal is to result in change…they are just proposals

2. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage about a study of the category of patients referred to in lines 20 - 22 [Often researchers restrict study participation to patients who have no ailments besides those being studied.]?

(A) Its findings might have limited applicability.
-Correct (albeit generalizability is the better word)

(B) It would be prohibitively expensive in its attempt to create ideal conditions.
-No, we don’t know how much this would cost

(C) It would be the best way to sample the total population of potential patients.
-“Best” is quite the opposite of what Frazier and Mosteller intend.

(D) It would allow researchers to limit information collection without increasing the risk that important variables could be overlooked.
-Wrong paragraph

(E) Its findings would be more accurate if it concerned treatments for a progressive disease than if it concerned treatments for a nonprogressive disease.
-This is a silly idea…anyway the idea that it would be MORE ACCURATE misses the point
-what Frazier and Mosteller propose is that expanding the inclusion criteria would allow researchers to do more detailed SUB-GROUP analyses, not that broadening the criteria would make the results MORE ACCURATE

3. It can be inferred from the passage that a study limited to patients like those mentioned in lines 20-22 [Often researchers restrict study participation to patients who have no ailments besides those being studied.] would have which of the following advantages over the kind of study proposed by Frazier and Mosteller?

(A) It would yield more data and its findings would be more accurate.
-accuracy is wrong

(B) It would cost less in the long term, though it would be more expensive in its initial stages.
-all we know is that substantial data colletion is costly, there’s nothing to indicate how the cost is spread

(C) It would limit the number of variables researchers would need to consider when evaluating the treatment under study.
-Correct

(D) It would help researchers to identify subgroups of patients with secondary conditions that might also be treatable.
-This is precisely what it wouldn’t do

(E) It would enable researchers to assess the value of an experimental treatment for the average patient.
-limiting the inclusion criteria limits the generalizability…so it can’t be inferred what the value is for the AVERAGE patient which likely doesn’t share the same disease profile as some of the more niche patients



4. The author mentions patients' ages primarily in order to

A. identify the most critical variable differentiating subgroups of patients
-no, patient age is one way the analysis of the study can be stratified, but it’s not the MOST CRITICAL

B. cast doubt on the advisability of implementing Frazier and Mosteller's proposals about medical research
-no doubt is being casted here; the examples of age and disease stages are used as examples in support of their proposal

C. indicate why progressive diseases may require different treatments at different stages
-no…the two ideas don’t impact each other

D. illustrate a point about the value of enrolling a wide range of patients in clinical trials
Correct

E. substantiate an argument about the problems inherent in enrolling large numbers of patients in clinical trials
-they argue that MORE not FEWER patients should be enrolled

5. According to the passage, which of the following describes a result of the way in which researchers generally conduct clinical trials?

(A) They expend resources on the storage of information likely to be irrelevant to the study they are conducting.
-all we know is that the general conduct of trials is costly and part of that is attributable to the storage of info.; there’s no suggestion that such data is IRRELEVANT, but that it might not be NECESSARY
This is the correct answer for this choice (reference the OE). I am not a fan of the word irrelevant though that's why I eliminated this.

(B) They sometimes compromise the accuracy of their findings by collecting and analyzing more information than is strictly required for their trials.
-again…the latter portion of this choice is correct, but there’s no suggestion that how data is currently collected compromises the accuracy

(C) They avoid the risk of overlooking variables that might affect their findings, even though doing so raises their research costs.
-Correct; avoid is too strong of a word in my opinion because the passage states that Frazier and his colleague think that such risks are uneliminable…

(D) Because they attempt to analyze too much information, they overlook facts that could emerge as relevant to their studies.
-Frazier and Co think that collecting less information would raise the risk of overlooking facts; they don’t think that ANALYZING too much would lead researchers to overlook facts; to be clear, we don’t even know what analyzing too much information would lead to – the first paragraph is all about COLLECTION

(E) In order to approximate the conditions typical of medical treatment, they base their methods of information collection on those used by hospitals.
-actually, researchers collect SUBSTANTIALLY MORE data than hospitals do
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