question re: placebo effect

Is it possible for Group 1 to experience significant pain-reduction from an effective medication, and for Group 2 (having been administered sugar pills) to also experience significant pain-reduction through the placebo effect?

In this way, the medication that was administered was still effective, yet the placebo effect in Group 2 was equally powerful. In this hypothetical situation, the placebo effect does not necessarily negate the medication's efficacy.

Me too!

Hmm. I suppose the question implies that prior to the use of machines, another way that cotton fibers could have been spun was by hand. It suggests this through answer choices B and C. The question doesn't tell us explicitly that cotton can be hand spun, but we can infer that the cotton must have been spun somehow prior to the use of machines, and the only other method the question provides is that of hand spinning.

The stimulus tells us that this special kind of green or brown cotton "became commercially feasible (or viable) when a long-fibered variety that can be spun by machine was finally bred." It follows that any sort of cotton that does not possess these three attributes (green or brown, long-fibered, can be spun by machine) is not commercially viable.