Public Health Official: After several years of vaccinating all of the

Hi mikemcgarry

(in line with what rsaahil90 and a few others brought up)

This question has led me into thinking about a very basics issue of GMAT CR- 'Till what extent can we bring in our real world knowledge while answering a CR question??'

This question can be answered correctly even if we ignore 90% of the info that is given in the passage and consider only the portion of it that says - 'state hospitals have cut costs by no longer administering this vaccine'. And, didnt we actually answer it this way?? This was only possible because we know from the real world that if a vaccine is discontinued, those who never received it would be at risk.

U see, most part of the discussion on this thread has been dealing with 'real world knowledge', for instance, the discussion on 'Smallpox'. The moment i see something other than the question itself being discussed (vaccinations, in this case), and it makes me feel 'Thank God! we'r finally into the real world now... but wait, my test isnt done yet and i'm drifting away from the high-endurance-demanding-CR-mindset '

Please help me here. Are we expected to have and apply this knowledge about vaccination?

BTW, how do I answer this question if I am not aware that 'Vaccination is given at an early age'?

Thanks!

Dear arhumsid
i'm happy to respond.

My friend, the GMAT is designed to prepare you for business school, which in turn is designed to prepare you for the business world. If you are not conversant in commonly known facts about the real world, you will flounder in the business world. If B-school adcom senses that you don't have a keen understanding of basic real world issues, you will not be an attractive candidate even if you have an 800 on the GMAT. This is about much much more than performance on the GMAT CR.

If you make a dichotomy between CR-intelligence and real-world intelligence, you do not truly understand the nature of the CR. It's not about leaving one way of thinking and drawing on a completely different way of thinking. Instead, it's about developing an intelligence in which logic and real-world instincts function seamlessly.

Of course, you do not need to be an expert about vaccines. You do not need to know their history, their biological mechanism. You just need to have the basic idea: almost everyone in the modern world gets vaccines in infancy. Parents regularly do this for their kids. Why? What does getting a vaccine do? What would happen if one didn't get it?

Think about it. Think about any activity that over 90% of the population does, and think about the motivations and economics of that. Entertainment is a huge industry: how much money is spent and where does the money go? Lots of people drive: how does registering a car work? how does a drivers license work? From whence does the food in your grocery store come? Who paves the roads and who pays those people to do so? Where does the water in your house come from, and where does the waste water go? Part of preparing for the GMAT and for business school involves developing a curiosity about the economic systems all around us. You want to go to business school and be an expert in business? Well, business is happening everyday all around you. Money is being exchanged for hundreds of different reasons. Part of understanding business means getting curious about all that.

You can learn a lot simply by reading the business news: the WSJ, the Financial Times, Bloomberg, etc. You can also learn a lot by talking to people who are 20-30 years older than you: what are their motivations and concerns? What insights can they provide simply from their lived experience?

Will you see a question on the GMAT about vaccines? Probably not. Will you see a CR question that somehow involves some real-world economic activity that happens in your immediate environment every day? Quite likely. The more you have instincts for that real-world activity, the easier the CR question will be for you.

I will suggest this blog:
GMAT Critical Reasoning and Outside Knowledge
The links at the end of that article provide a kind of primer about different categories of real world knowledge that could be helpful on the GMAT.

Does all this make sense?
Mike
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Answer is A
A very good question .
A and C are close contenders .
Lets take a close look at C
C) Tacitus’ Disease is a much deadlier disease than Salicetiococcus, and has a correspondingly higher fatality rate .
This may be true for Tacitus but we do know that vaccine program should be started again and and does tell us whether it might spread again.

A hits nail on the head as it gives us evidence that if vaccine program for Tacitus is not restarted children will suffer from disease.
Hope it helps .

Isnt it a big assumption?

Keep in mind, people who are vaccinated can carry the virus, but they simply don't get sick from it. In all likelihood, the vast majority of members of this population are passive carriers of the virus, so in all likelihood, the virus is still present in the population.

Suppose I dont belong to any medical profession how do i know that people can carry virus even after vaccination? question stem doesn't say this.

Dear ramsahoo,

I'm happy to respond.

My friend, many students think that the only information they need is what exists in the prompt. This is a big misconception about the GMAT CR. You don't need to have detailed specialized knowledge, but you absolutely need to have a basic appreciation for real world facts, especially facts about the business world. See:
GMAT Critical Reasoning and Outside Knowledge
Think about it. The GMAT CR is about preparing you for the business world, because executives have to evaluate arguments all the time. If you read an article or hear a presentation saying, for example, that X is a good thing, you are not simply responsible for what the article or presentation says. As a business executive, you will have to have an appreciation of the larger forces at work in the market, to decide how to evaluate that argument.

For this question, you don't need to have a medical student's understanding of the mechanisms of vaccines. Think about it. You probably have gotten many vaccines when you were young. Probably so did everyone else that you know. Get curious. What have you and everyone else gotten? How do it work? Why do people use vaccines? Read a Wikipedia article about it. Talk to someone who has more knowledge than you. Do whatever you can to learn about the world around you.

The mindset of mediocrity says, "I didn't know I was responsible to know that." The mindset of excellence is all about learning as much as possible about the world around us. If you have a rich understanding of the real world and of the business world, you will be very successful in GMAT CR, in B school, and in your career.

Does all this make sense?
Mike
_________________

" all of the citizens" is the main conclusion => A is correct b/c A directly links with the conclusion.
C is a trap. Although the argument talks about Salicetiococcus, the argument only mentions a similar case; therefore, the argument itself is not out of scope. Also, the argument never talks about the fatality rate => C is wrong.

[quote="mikemcgarry"]
Public Health Official: After several years of vaccinating all of the citizens of this state for Tacitus’ Disease, a highly infectious virus, state hospitals have cut costs by no longer administering this vaccine, starting at the beginning of this year. A state senator defended the position, arguing that after several years with zero incidence of the disease in the state, its citizens were no longer at risk. This is a flawed argument. Our state imports meats and produce from countries with high incidences of diseases for which our country has vaccines. Three years ago, when we reduced the use of the Salicetiococcus vaccines, a small outbreak of Salicetiococcus among young children, fortunately without fatalities, encouraged us to resume use of the vaccines at the previous levels.

The public health official’s statements, if true, best support which of the following as a conclusion?
(A) Young children of the state will be at risk for Tacitus’ Disease. -Correct. The children as they got infected by other type of virus, will also get infected by this virus if the vaccination is stopped.
(B) Some of the meats imported to this state do not have adequate refrigeration during the shipping process. -refrigeration? Out of scope
(C) Tacitus’ Disease is a much deadlier disease than Salicetiococcus, and has a correspondingly higher fatality rate. -fatality rate? out of scope
(D) No food products produced within the state bear any contaminants that could lead to either Tacitus’ Disease or Salicetiococcus. -Tricky, close contender. The passage states that the mean imported from outside may be contaminated. But it doesn't say that the food prepared in the country cannot be contaminated.
(E) The cost of providing all citizens of the state with the Tacitus’ Disease vaccine places an undue burden on the budget of state health agencies. -cost? out of scope

Just add to that . On magoosh this question is added as 'very hard' with a pace avg around 2:06. This means most of the people face a lot of issue while solving this one. and in that order this is a 700 level question. this can happen with GMAC too. if a question is easy for someone but still 700 level it means its not easy for major population.

IMHO, difficulty of a question is a relative term. it might be possible question such as this came at last of your test and reading such huge question is not a good idea, rather take a risk guess and move on.

Official Explanation

The credited answer is (A). We know the citizenry currently is immune because of the vaccine. If they stop immunizing folks, the unvaccinated ones, i.e. the young children, would be vulnerable to this "highly infectious" diseases. We don't know for sure that they will definitely get Tacitus' Diseases, but we certainly know that their unvaccinated immune systems would be "at risk" for it. This is a well-supported conclusion.

Choice (B) is tempting. We know the countries that export meat & produce to this state have many of these diseases. It is suggested that these imports could constitute a vector for Tacitus' disease into the state. We don't know whether diseases could be introduced through these imports, but even if they are, there's no reason to conclude meats are unrefrigerated. Unrefrigerated meat spoils very quickly, which suggest that it never could be sold once it arrived here. Furthermore, refrigerator doesn't destroy viruses --- they can simply remain dormant until they thaw. We have no grounds for concluding this. (B) is incorrect.

Choice (C) is unsubstantiated: we have no way to compare the infection rates. (C) is incorrect.

Choice (D) might be tempting, but we just don't know. The whole population has been immune to Tacitus' disease for years, because they all have been vaccinated. We don't know by what pathways the Tacitus's disease virus might be entering the population. We have no reason to assume this. (D) is incorrect.

Choice (E) is not a solid conclusion. We know that it cost something for the state hospitals to provide the Tacitus' disease vaccine. Was this cost high? Did it place an economic burden on the state health services? We don't know. We have no grounds for drawing this specific conclusion. (E) is incorrect.

The explanation provided seems to (to me) assume too many assumptions that link children to the T disease.
i got this wrong as i selected B.....

question 1: B is wrong because no where in the stimulus does it talk about imported food going bad during shipping.
So, in this case, given my failure to get to reason out, I shd have used POE to eliminate B, that wd have let A.

correct?

Mansoor50 True you should have used POE for all questions. How ever the statement that you have rejected A, Cause it will take a lot many assumptions to be correct, seems over kill to me. I think even if it was an inference question we can select A for sure. If you stop vaccination then no new child will get any vaccination. So they will be vulnerable .

Also if you cant eliminate something on solid grounds, keep it till last. Remember, your aim is to find 4 wrong choices.

aragonn

Yes.....i keep forgetting this and thank u..

mikemcgarry

option A was little confusing Young children with newborn babies. :/ Choose E thought that hospitals have to cut cost because they are a burden to hospitals.

Can you explain why E is wrong??
Thank You :)

Hi mikemcgarry
Your explanation is really a great tool to my poor understanding of reading comprehension since I???m a non native-English speaker.

But about you say that we had to equip with the basic external knowledge/common sense to CR question, I was quite perplex on this point.
Take an article about ragtime music in my RC practice for example, there???s an option to question5 in this passage which ask about the relationship between ragtime music and jazz. I google on the Internet, all agree that ragtime originate from jazz, however, as I see that the author???s opinion to this question is totally at the opposite side to what common sense sits





Ragtime is a musical form that synthesizes folk melodies and musical techniques into a brief quadrille-like structure, designed to be played-exactly as Line written-on the piano. A strong analogy exists between European composers like Ralph Vaughan Williams, Edvard Grieg, and Anton Dvorak who combined folk tunes and their own original materials in larger compositions and the pioneer ragtime composers in the United States. Composers like Scott Joplin and James Scott were in a sense collectors or musicologists, collecting dance and folk music in Black communities and consciously shaping it into brief suites or anthologies called piano rags.

It has sometimes been charged that ragtime is mechanical. For instance, Wilfred Mellers comments, "rags 'were transferred to the pianola roll and, even if not played by a machine, should be played like a machine, with meticulous precision." However, there is no reason to assume that ragtime is inherently mechanical simply because commercial manufacturers applied a mechanical recording method to ragtime, the only way to record pianos at that date. Ragtime's is not a mechanical precision, and it is not precision limited to the style of performance. It arises from ragtime's following a well-defined form and obeying simple rules within that form. The classic formula for the piano rag disposes three to five themes in sixteen-bar strains, often organized with repeats. The rag opens with a bright, memorable strain or theme, followed by a similar theme, leading to a trio of marked lyrical character, with the structure concluded by a lyrical strain that parallels the rhythmic developments of the earlier themes. The aim of the structure is to rise from one theme to another in a stair-step manner, ending on a note of triumph or exhilaration.

Typically, each strain is divided into two 8-bar segments that are essentially alike, so the rhythmic-melodic unit of ragtime is only eight bars of 2/4 measure. Therefore, themes must be brief with clear, sharp melodic figures. Not concerned with development of musical themes, the ragtime composer instead sets a theme down intact, in finished form, and links it to various related themes. Tension in ragtime compositions arises from a polarity between two basic ingredients: a continuous bass - called by jazz musicians a boom-chick bass - in the pianist's left hand, and its melodic, syncopated counterpart in the right hand. Ragtime remains distinct from jazz both as an instrumental style and as a genre.

Ragtime style stresses a pattern of repeated rhythms, not the constant inventions and variations of jazz. As a genre, ragtime requires strict attention to structure, not inventiveness or virtuosity(great skill in music or another artistic pursuit). It exists as a tradition, a set of conventions, a body of written scores, separate from the individual players associated with it. In this sense ragtime is more akin to folk music of the nineteenth century than to jazz.


5. It can be inferred that the author of the passage believes that the most important feature of ragtime music is its

(A) commercial success???out of scope,the passage doesn???t mention anything about this

(B) formal structure ???correct
As a genre, ragtime requires strict attention to structure, not inventiveness or virtuosity. It exists as a tradition, a set of conventions, a body of written scores, separate from the individual players associated with it.


(C) emotional range (the extent to which a person???s emotions are sensitive to the individual???s environment)
???out of scope

(D) improvisational opportunities???incorrect
Ragtime style stresses a pattern of repeated rhythms, not the constant inventions and variations of jazz.

(E) role as a forerunner of jazz???incorrect
Ragtime remains distinct from jazz both as an instrumental style and as a genre.

However, as for this answer,I still hold a kind of reserved attitude since I???ve googled on the Internet which has a lot of saying about ???ragtime???, and I saw lots people ask about whether Ragtime considered jazz which the answers always say that Ragtime was the immediate precursor to jazz

Hello Mike,

My two cents on this - I realize why A should be the OA, but the argument should have some mention of immunity only through vaccination, and not doing so, opens different possibilities.

(a)For answer choice A to be correct, we are assuming that the young children somehow do not have a natural immune response (for ex: through genetic transmission) to the Tacitus disease and that vaccinations are the only way to develop immunity.

(b) In the premise, it states that young children did contract the Salicetiococcus disease - However it doesn't specify if these children never received the vaccine in the first place. And hence young children is a generalization and a larger subset of young children who did not receive the vaccine

(A) Young children of the state will be at risk for Tacitus’ Disease.
Since the withdrawl of Salicetiococcus vaccine lead children to be affected we cannot rule out a similar pattern therefore let us hang on to it


(B) Some of the meats imported to this state do not have adequate refrigeration during the shipping process.
This is thoroughly out of contest we cannot decide upon with the given passage we cannot substantiate out of conext data

(C) Tacitus’ Disease is a much deadlier disease than Salicetiococcus, and has a correspondingly higher fatality rate.
This too cannot be determined since there is no mention or comparison of fatalities

(D) No food products produced within the state bear any contaminants that could lead to either Tacitus’ Disease or Salicetiococcus.
No food is a iversimplification there can be chances it's just not discussed in the passage so we cannot determine about the same

(E) The cost of providing all citizens of the state with the Tacitus’ Disease vaccine places an undue burden on the budget of state health agencies.
The state has cut down on the taxes that doesn't mean the state is low on cash it simply chose to stop the support we are not in a position to determine whether this was due to decrease in revenue

Therefore IMO A

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