Logical Reasoning

PT155 · S2 · Q14 In a study, six medical

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In a study, six medical students were each separately presented with the same patient, whose symptoms could be the result of any one of several medical conditions.

Facts

Some med students and a doctor are looking at a sick patient trying to diagnose.

The doctor says,

A week later these same med students and a different doctor are looking at a similar sick patient.

The new doctor says, "Well, how would we diagnose this patient?" Meg says, "here's how I would rule out lupus ..." Tony says, "here's how I would rule out emphysema ... "

Evaluate

This one seems to be like a Solve the Causal Mystery / Identify the Causal Difference-Maker type setup. We have some interesting behavior in that each med student is going back to the disease they were asked about initially.

Can we say something safely worded like, , or

Goal

Pick the most provable answer (it might be a safely worded explanation for why the med students are going back to their original diagnosis).

14.

Which one of the following statements is most strongly supported by the information above?

  1. Correct

    On the second occasion, none

    Why this is right

    This seems pretty provable. Since they were all given different diseases the first time (one got X, one got Y, one got Z), and since they all began the second time by addressing the disease they were given (one began with X, one began with Y, one began with Z), it seems pretty safe to say that none of them began in the same way.

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

    68% picked this

  2. At most one of the

    Out of Scope

    Out of Scope: knew the most likely one This tries to make an inference from the inference. Since they all began by talking about different diagnoses, at most one of them was correct? Two problems: - it's possible that more than one condition afflicts the patient. It might be a combo of diabetes and emphysema. - it's possible that the med students began talking about the disease assigned to them in the first go-round, even though the student knew a different medical condition was more likely to lead to those symptoms. We'd be making a leap from "if you started by talking about disease X, then you thought that X was most likely to lead to the patients' symptoms", but that's not a definite move we can make.

    4% picked this

  3. The second attending physician was

    Out of Scope: awareness

    We have no idea whether the second doctor was in on this scheme or oblivious to it. She just asked the students, "What do y'all think is the diagnosis?" That's compatible with her being aware of what the first doctor did or being oblivious to it.

    4% picked this

  4. On the second occasion, exactly

    Too Strong: exactly one

    This is like (B) in trying to go one step farther ... "Since they all tested for different diseases, only one of them was right." Two problems: - more than one condition might afflict the patient, so more than one student can be right - it might be that all the students were wrong, so maybe zero students were testing for the correct condition(s)

    3% picked this

  5. At least some of the

    Out of Scope: awareness

    We can't speak to what the med students were or weren't aware of. We didn't get any information about their thoughts. Their behavior in repeating the disease they were assigned the first time around could mean that they think "one of those conditions the first doctor offered must have been the right answer", but it could also mean "the doctors want me to prove that I can rule out all these wrong answers first".

    21% picked this

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