Self-study
Reporter: A team of scientists has recently devised a new test that for the first time accurately diagnoses autism in children as young as 18 months old. ████ ████ ██ ████████ ██████ ████████ ██ █████ ████████ ████████ ███ ████ █████████ █████████ ███ ██ ████████ █████ █████████ ██ ██ █████████ ██████ ██ ████ ███████ ██████████ █ ████████ ██ █████████ ████████ ████████ ███ █████████ ███ ███████ ████ ███████ ██ ████ ████ ██████ ████ ███ ██████████ ███████ ██████████
Summary
The reporter concludes that autistic children can benefit from treatment earlier in life, because there’s a new test that can diagnose earlier in life.
Notable Assumptions
There are no glaring holes here. One thing to note, though, is that the reporter has included a fault in the test: “it also wrongly identified 2 children as autistic.”
Though there is nothing obvious, there are some general assumptions that we could pursue: that there’s a relationship between diagnosis and treatment, and that there’s a relationship between diagnosis and benefit.
17.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ██ █████ ███ ██████████ ████████ ████████
a
No test intended ███ ██████████ ██████ ██ ████ ██ █████ ███ ███████ ██████ ███ ███ ████ ███ ████████
Intention is different than accomplishment. The context already told us that this is a new test, and that its accuracy is unprecedented. It doesn’t matter if other tests have tried to do it before this.
b
A diagnostic test ████ █████████ ███████ █████ █ ████████ █████████ ███ █████ ███████ █ ██████████ █████ ███ █████████ ██████████
This is necessary for the argument. If it isn’t true, then our new test (that sometimes gives a false positive) cannot be used to decide treatment. This negation severs the connection between diagnosis and treatment, like we predicted.
c
The new test ███ ██ ████ ██ ████████ ███ █████████ ██████████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ███████████ ██ █████ ██████ ███████
it isn’t necessary for the test to be available for all children. As long as some autistic children benefit, the argument stands a chance.
d
Those children incorrectly ██████████ ██ ████████ ████ ███ ██ █████████ ████████ ██ ██████████ █████ ██ ███████ ████████ █████████
The conclusion is about autistic children benefitting from the test. It isn’t about potential suffering of non-autistic children.
e
There was no ████████ ████████ ████ ██████ █████ ██████ ████████ ██ █████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ███ █████
Phrased differently, (E) is essentially saying “We didn’t know this was possible!” This is not necessary for the argument.