Reporter: A team of scientists

Answer choices

1. A

   Out of Scope13% picked this

   No test intended for diagnosing autism at such an early age existed before the new

   The argument is about whether autistic children can now benefit earlier from treatment. Whether other early-diagnosis tests existed before is irrelevant. Negate this answer (some other test existed before) and the conclusion still follows — children can still benefit earlier with the new test.

   13%
2. B

   Correct67% picked this

   A diagnostic test that sometimes falsely gives a positive diagnosis can still provide a reasonable

   Why this is right

   This is the assumption the argument needs. The test produces some false positives — 2 children flagged who are not autistic. For the conclusion (autistic children can benefit earlier from treatment) to follow, the false positives must not undermine using the test to guide treatment. Negate this answer — "a test with false positives cannot be a reasonable basis for treatment decisions" — and the conclusion collapses, because no one would treat based on this test. The argument depends on this.

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

   67%
3. C

   Bad Assumption2% picked this

   The new test can be used to evaluate all children, regardless of the level of development

   The argument does not need the test to work for all children regardless of verbal skills. The study already showed it caught 10 out of 10 autistic children in a sample of 16,000 — strong evidence the test works in practice. Negate this answer (the test does not work on all children regardless of verbal skills) and the conclusion still holds: the test still allowed those 10 (and presumably future similar children) to be diagnosed and treated earlier.

   2%
4. D

   Bad Assumption16% picked this

   Those children incorrectly identified as autistic will not be adversely affected by treatments aimed at

   The conclusion is about autistic children benefiting from earlier treatment. Whether the misidentified children will be unaffected by autism treatments is not required for the conclusion to hold. Negate this answer (misidentified children will be adversely affected) and the original conclusion still works for the actually autistic children — the question of harm to false positives is a separate concern from whether autistic children benefit. The argument does not depend on this.

   16%
5. E

   Out of Scope2% picked this

   There was no reliable evidence that autism could affect children so young until the advent

   The argument concludes autistic children can now benefit earlier — it does not need the claim that no prior evidence existed about autism in children this young. The conclusion is forward-looking; the historical claim about prior evidence is not necessary. Negate this and the argument is unaffected.

   2%