Q5 - One theory concerning the importance

[christine.defenbaugh]

Question Type:
Inference (Most Strongly Supported)

Stimulus Breakdown:
Theory: Vit C helps collagen, which is just in connective tissue and bones.
Because of that theory, some doctors think you can use Vit C for common illnesses.

Answer Anticipation:
There's a bit of a leap from the theory about Vit C to doctors wanting to use it for common illnesses. What is it about Vit C that makes the doctors think it'll work for these symptoms? It's got to be either that these illnesses have something to do with collagen specifically, or something to do with connective tissue and bones, because that's the only information we were given to work with -- since this is an inference question, we have to stay within the bounds of the information given.

Correct answer:
A

Answer choice analysis:
(A) This ties the illnesses to the connective tissue or bones. Great!

(B) Strong language alert! There's absolutely nothing in the information given to suggest that Vit C is the only thing that does what it does.

(C) This is kind of reversing our info. The theory suggests that Vit C does something to connective tissue / bones, not the other way around.

(D) Strong language alert! We only know that some doctors find it useful - 'most effective treatment' is going much further than our text.

(E) Strong language alert! Where is this bit about deterioration of connective tissue coming from? All we know is that Vit C might have a connection to collagen, and collagen is in connective tissue. We'd have to add a lot of our own assumptions about how those relationships work to get to even some of the illnesses causing deterioration, much less every one of them.

Takeaway/Pattern:
While there's often not any sort of gap in reasoning for Inference questions, it can happen. When we have a gap, we shouldn't be skeptical of the end result of the thinking, the way we should be in an assumption question. But we do want to figure out how to get from A to Z with only the information given to us. Stick to the text!

#officialexplanation