PT76.S2.Q18 - An Article claims that medical patients have an instictual ability

ainewton-1

After reviewing the correct answer, (B), it seems that we are supposed to assume that it was medical staff who reported that their patients could predict their own medical outcomes. I feel like this is a huge leap, though, as I read the stem to imply that patients were self-reporting their predictions. Even if I didn't assume this, it seems like a similarly big assumption that medical staff are the "reporters" in this instance. Am I missing something?

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MichaelScottRegionalManager

The stimulus never mentions that it were the patients who were self-reporting. Remember, our job is to make the two arguments analogous (parallel). To assume that the patients were self-reporting is like saying that the babies were self-reporting that they were being born during full moons. The analogous case given to us says "reports of babies being born on full moons (given by maternity staff)". We can infer from this that our claim that "medical patients can predict sudden changes" is reported by the medical staff as well.

It might also help to think about the argument structure for the two analogous situations given to us. We're both given a claim ("medical patients have an instinctual ability to predict sudden changes" and "babies are born in disproportionately high numbers during full moons") but our first claim is missing the reason why the claim was disproven. Our focus should be on this supplying missing piece to make the two situations analogous - which is best demonstrated by AC B.

Answer choice B is reading (in an easier way): the medical staff are more likely to remember if patient's predications about changes are right than when they're not right. This is the same support given in our analogous argument that: maternity room staff were more likely to remember busy nights with full moons than when there wasn't a full moon.

Hope this helps!