Quote:
In a recent study, participants were asked to consider three hypothetical treatments for a deadly disease infecting 8,000 individuals. Treatment A would save 6,000 individuals, but the rest would die. Treatment B would offer a 75% chance of saving all of the infected individuals, but a 25% chance of saving none. Treatment C would kill 2,000 individuals, but the rest would live. Participants strongly preferred Treatment A over Treatment B and both Treatment A and Treatment B over Treatment C.
The above study results most strongly support which of the following conclusions?
A. Study participants consistently favored those treatments that offered certainty over those that created uncertainty.
B. Most or all study participants favored those treatments that saved the greatest number of lives.
C. Some or all of the study participants were confused by the experimenters’ instructions.
D. Participants would have strongly disfavored a hypothetical Treatment D that offered a 25% chance that all of the infected individuals would die but a 75% chance that none of the infected individuals would die.
E. The effectiveness of a treatment and its likelihood of success were not the only factors that affected which treatments were favored by study participants.
Veritas Prep Explanation
The correct answer is E.Note that Treatments A and C are, in fact, quite identical in their effects – though those effects are expressed a bit differently. Each of these two treatments results in 6,000 individuals living and 2,000 individuals dying. So any preference that study participants expressed between the two treatments could not be based only on the effectiveness of those treatments. Whatever else the participants may have considered – perhaps the disparate framing of the statements had its own impact – it is fair to conclude that Answer E must be true.
Answer A is incorrect because in fact the two treatments with the most certainty, Treatment A and Treatment C, received opposite preferences from the study participants. Treatment A was most favored, whereas Treatment C was least favored. The treatment that generated more uncertainty, Treatment B, received the middle preference.
Alternatively, if the “uncertainty” is understood as a question of which people would die, then Treatments A and C generate more uncertainty but again are placed at opposite ends of the preference spectrum. Either way, avoidance of uncertainty does not seem to explain these results.
Answer B again fails to appreciate that Treatments A and C save the same number of lives, and, in fact, Treatment B, on average, saves the exact same number of lives as well. Though it is almost certainly true in real life, there is no basis within this argument to conclude that study participants favored saving more lives.
Answer C is plausible, since study participants treated functionally identical treatments – Treatment A and Treatment C – so differently, but this explanation is not certain. Perhaps the instructions did not confuse participants but the treatment descriptions did. Perhaps participants fully understood the treatment descriptions but were biased by the way in which those descriptions were framed. Answer C is not a “must be true” answer and is not, therefore, a correct inference.
Answer D speculates about a new treatment that the study simply gives us no basis to evaluate with certainty. In fact, a close reading reveals that Treatment D is logically identical to Treatment B. Perhaps its different framing would produce a different preference, or perhaps not. If it did produce a different preference, perhaps that preference would be higher or perhaps it would be lower. Certainty is rarely forthcoming on a hypothetical such as this, and we may conclude, for this reason, that Answer D is incorrect.
close
02 Sep 2020, 20:00
42%
(02:21)
wrong 
