RohitSaluja wrote:
Bunuel wrote:
Orthodox medicine is ineffective at both ends of the spectrum of ailments. At the more trivial end, orthodox medicine is largely ineffective in treating aches, pains and allergies, and, at the other extreme, it has yet to produce a cure for serious, life-threatening diseases such as advanced cancer and lupus. People turn to alternative medicine when orthodox medicine fails to help them and when it produces side effects that are unacceptable to them. One of the reasons alternative medicines is free of such side effects is that it does not have any effects at all.
If the statements above are true, which one of the following can be properly inferred from them?
(A) Practitioners of alternative medicine are acting in bad faith.
(B) There are some medical conditions for which no orthodox or alternative treatment is effective.
(C) There are some trivial illnesses that can be treated effectively by the methods of alternative medicine.
(D) There are no effective medical treatments that are free from unacceptable side effects.
(E) Orthodox medicine will eventually produce a solution for the diseases that are currently incurable.
Hi
VeritasKarishma AndrewN can you please help me with the question? No where in the passage is mentioned whether alternative treatment is effective or not.
Actually,
RohitSaluja, the end of the passage tells us that
[alternative medicine] does not have any effects at all, so we can deduce that, according to the passage, alternative treatment is
not effective for treating
some medical conditions. (In fact, the passage would take the statement one step further and say that alternative treatment on its own would not be effective for treating
any medical conditions.) Provided the passage also indicates that
no orthodox treatment can effectively treat these same unnamed medical conditions, we cannot find a way to argue against (B). The second line of the passage does just that, presenting a range of medical conditions for which orthodox medicine is either
largely ineffective or
has yet to produce a cure, not to mention that line three specifically outlines a situation in which
orthodox medicine fails to help [people]. I felt good about (B) right away, but I checked the other options, just in case. Nothing else agreed with the passage, so I was left with a single answer, a best case scenario.
I hope my response helps you with this question. Thank you for thinking to ask.
- Andrew
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