Self-study
When people show signs of having a heart attack an electrocardiograph (EKG) is often used to diagnose their condition. ██ █ ██████ █ ████████ ███████ ███ ███ █████████ ██ █████ ███████ ███ ██████ ███████ █ ████ ████████████ ██████ ███████ █████████████ ███ ███████ █████████ █████████ █ █████████████ ██████ ██████████ ██ ███ █████ ████ ████ █████ █████████ ██ ██ █████ ███████ ████ ███ ███ █████████████ ████████████ ███ █████ ██████████ ██████ ██ ████ ██ ████████ █████████
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that computers, rather than cardiologists, should interpret EKG data. This is because, in one study, a computer predicted a higher proportion of heart attacks based on EKG data than an expert cardiologist did.
Notable Assumptions
The author believes that this one study, which just focuses interpreting EKG data for diagnosing heart attacks, justifies replacing cardiologists with computers for EKG data interpretation in general. But we don't know if EKG data is used for other purposes where computers might not be as accurate. The author also assumes that the results of the study weren't just due to the computer generally being biased to diagnosing cases as heart attacks. We only know how the computer performed in cases that turned out to be actual heart attacks--we don't know how it performed in cases that turned out not to be heart attacks. If the computer identified nearly every EKG reading as a heart attack, this would explain why it guessed a higher proportion of actual heart attacks than the cardiologist did, but it would also cast doubt on its usefulness, since it would have misdiagnosed a number of cases that turned out not to be heart attacks.
20.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████ ███ █████████
a
Experts agreed that ███ ████████████ ████ ███ ███████ ████████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████████ ███ ███ █████
If anything, this would strengthen the argument. If the expert was doing an excellent job and making few, if any, mistakes, then the computer must have performed even better, perhaps better than humanly possible. This would strengthen the claim that computers should replace cardiologists in interpreting EKG data.
b
The practice of ████████ ██ ██ ████ ██ ███ ██ █ ████████ ███ ████████ ████████ ███ ███ ██████ ███████ ██ ██████ ██████████ ██████████
Irrelevant. The computer isn’t being asked to “practice medicine.” It’s being asked to read EKG data, which seems unlikely to require a subjective element, unlike the practice of medicine in general.
c
The cardiologist correctly █████████ █ █████████████ ██████ ██████████ ██ ███ █████ ██ █████ ██ █████ ██████ ████████ ████ ███ ███ ████████ ████████
This answer choice suggests that the computer program was biased in favor of interpreting EKG data as signaling a heart attack. It tended to predict a heart attack even when no heart attack occurred. Thus, since we don't know the proportion of actual heart attacks versus non-heart attacks in EKG data, the computer may well be wrong in its diagnoses more often than the expert was. This would weaken the author's claim that computers should replace cardiologists in EKG data interpretation.
d
In a considerable ██████████ ██ ██████ ███ ████ █████ ███ ████████████ ██ ██████ ██████ ████████ ████████ ██ █████████████ ██ ████ ████████ ██████████
We're not interested in cases where EKG data is insufficient to make predictions. The stimulus only talks about cases where EKG data can be used to make predictions. We want to know about whether computers or cardiologists perform better in those specific cases, where EKG data is useful.
e
The cardiologist in ███ █████ ███ ████████████████ ██ █████████████ ██ ███████ ████ ███████ ██ █████ ███ ███████████
If anything, this would strengthen the argument. The premises tell us that this cardiologist was a skilled expert, and still underperformed relative to the computer. So if most cardiologists are far behind this one in their skill level, this makes it seem even more important to replace cardiologists wih computers in interpreting EKG data, as the author suggests.