Self-study
Changes in Britain’s National Health Service have led many British hospitals to end on-site laundry services for their staff. ████████ ███ █████ ██ █ ███████ ███████████ ███████ ████████ ██████ ████ ██ ███ ██████████ ███████ ████████ ████ ██ ██████████ ████ ███ █████ ████████████ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ███ █████████ █████████ ██████████████ ████████ █████████ ███████ ████ ███ ███████████████ ██ █████ ████████ ████ ███ ███ ████████ ██ █████
Summary
The hospital officials believe that stopping on-site laundry services for hospital staff will not put patients at risk from the dangerous bacterium Acinetobacter.
We don’t get any direct support for their belief, but we are told that in a typical residential washing machine, the temperatures aren’t high enough to kill Acinetobacter, whereas in hospital washing machines, the temperatures are high enough to kill it.
Notable Assumptions
It’s hard to predict any specific ideas that would strengthen the argument. We know that we’re trying to support the belief that stopping the hospital’s on-site laundry services won’t put patients at risk from the bacteria. But washing machines at home aren’t hot enough to kill the bacteria. Perhaps there’s some other way that hospital staff can kill the bacteria on their clothes?
10.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████ ██████████ ███████
a
Hospital staff typically ███████ ██ ████████ ██ ██████████████
Whether the staff develops an immunity to the bacteria doesn’t help us prove that PATIENTS won’t be at risk. The bacteria can still get on the clothes of the staff and infect patients.
b
Hospital patients infected ████ █████████████ ███ ██ ████████ ████ █████ █████████
But patients are still at risk from the staff, aren’t they? If staff have the bacteria on their clothes, they can still expose patients to the bacteria.
c
Most hospital staff ████ ███ ██ ███ ███████ ███████ ████████ ██████ ████ ████ █████████████
If anything, this provides reason to think stopping the services would put patients at risk.
Directionally wrong
Directionally wrong
Answers that, if they have any effect, do the opposite of what we want (weaken when we're trying to strengthen, or strengthen when we're trying to weaken).
d
Hospital staff are ██████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██████ ██ ████████████ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ██████████████
(D) is the only answer that provides any reason to think stopping on-site laundry services won’t put patients at risk from the bacteria. If hospital staff are instructed to use dryers that are hot enough to kill Acinetobacter, then we have some reason to think we don’t need on-site laundry services in order to kill the bacteria. Sure, “instructed” doesn’t mean that staff will actually follow through, but this isn’t a Sufficient Assumption question. We don’t need to guarantee the conclusion; we just need to pick the answer that most strengthens.
e
Water in residential ███████ ████████ ███████ ████████████ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ███ █████████ ████████ █████ ████ ██████████████
But we’re concerned about risk from Acinetobacter. If patients are still at risk from Acinetobacter, that doesn’t support the hospital officials’ belief.