A patient complained of feeling

Answer choices

1. A

   Unclear Impact2% picked this

   The shorter one’s sleep time, the easier it is to awaken

   Could we say that the patient was not advised to sleep more because the less you sleep the easier it is to wake up? Maybe. But that patient complained of feeling constantly fatigued. We wanted to fix his constant fatigue problem. It doesn't make a lot of sense that the doctor would be like, "Well .... I could make you sleep more and fix your feeling of constant fatigue, but it would be somewhat harder for you to awaken from sleeping, so, nah." This answer is good in that there is at least some potential good to come from not advising the patient to sleep more. But the answer is weak in that our common sense would tell us that people care more about whether or not they feel constantly fatigued than they do about whether it's harder / easier to awaken.

   2%
2. B

   Unrelated to Goal23% picked this

   The first two hours of sleep do the most to

   Even if the first two hours do the most to alleviate fatigue, we are told that this patient is feeling constantly fatigued and that his average sleep diet of only four to six hours was contributing to that constant fatigue. So this answer doesn't give us a good reason why we would advise more sleep. Yes hours 6, 7, and 8 of sleep don't alleviate fatigue as much as hours 1 and 2 do, but if hours 6-8 of sleep alleviate fatigue at all then seemingly we would still advise the patient to sleep more.

   23%
3. C

   Too Weak6% picked this

   Some people required less sleep than the eight hours required by

   Too Weak: some people Unrelated to Goal Answers with one data-point language like "could, may, some, sometimes, might, not all" are almost always from on questions that want impact (Strengthen, Weaken, Paradox all ask, "Which answer, if true, would do the most?") So what if there's at least one person who requires less than 8 hours sleep? We know that this dude is feeling constantly fatigued by his current sleep regimen of 4-6 hours. 4-6 hours are clearly not enough sleep for him, so why aren't we advising him to sleep more?

   6%
4. D

   No Distinction1% picked this

   Most people who suffer from nightmares experience them in the last hour of

   It doesn't matter whether you sleep 4 hours, 8 hours, or 10 hours, this answer always affects the final hour of your sleep. Since this answer has the same impact regardless of how many hours someone sleeps, it wouldn't be able to answer our riddle of why we're not advising the patient to get more than 4-6 hours a night.

   1%
5. E

   Correct68% picked this

   Worry about satisfying the need for sufficient sleep can make it more

   Why this is right

   This gives us a way to explain why the patient wasn't advised to sleep more. His current regimen of 4-6 hours is contributing to him feeling constantly fatigued. So clearly we would love for him to get more sleep. But if you tell a patient, "You need to get more sleep. Go home tonight and force yourself to get more sleep!" then you might cause the patient to worry about how much sleep they're getting, which could backfire and end up making them get even less sleep than they were before. Sometimes doctors give you a placebo (a fake treatment) because they think you will get better simply by thinking that you're taking something helpful. This answer suggests an inverted version of that. The doctor isn't prescribing the treatment she thinks that the patient needs because she's worried that the patient will get worse by worrying about their failure to follow the doctor's instructions.

   Skill tested: Paradox · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   68%