joshnsit wrote:
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) None of the patients with high blood pressure exercise regularly
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) Daily exercise has the same effect on blood pressure in all patients
E) The drug has little or no effect on patients with normal blood pressures
OA to come soon.. Please come with your explanations, not just your answers
Conclusion: Drug is less effective than exercise in patients with high blood pressure.
Direct Approach: Target the comparison of drug effectiveness and exercise effectiveness mentioned in the conclusion.
Defender Approach: Negate the ones with negative language and the ones arousing any doubt while elimination.
D need not be correct as conclusion specifically focuses on
patients with high blood pressure. Moreover, negating this option(Daily exercise has different effect on bp in all patients) doesn't prove that "Drugs will be not be less effective than Exercise". So, this comparison is not targeted in the choice.
C(Having healthy diets) will be applicable to samples of both drugs-taking and exercise-doing people, so we can not specifically prove our conclusion.
E is out as the normal blood pressure people are not discussed in the argument.
Since A/B have a negative language, so negation test is easy to apply.
Negated B says that All Patients with high bp achieved achieved below-normal levels with drug alone. But, again, the comparison as in conclusion is not taken addressed. It is possible that exercise doing people might be achieving better below-normal levels and thus better results.
Negated A says that "All patients with high bp exercise regularly". Conclusion says that exercise is better than drugs for high bp. Author is making assumption from a study of 2 independent group of patients. One group sample taking drugs and other doing exercise. If author is saying that drug taking group sample is not doing better than exercise, then he doesn't assume that these two groups are inter-mixed. But, negated A assumes that even the drug taking patients(as they have high bp) are also doing exercise. This disturbs the assumption.
Other way (with negated A) to see at A is that if drug taking patients are also doing exercise, then exercise should help in improving bp again. So chances of improvement will drug taking patients could be better and thus disturb the conclusion again.
OA is A.
Source 800Score
HTH