Q23 - Chronic back pain

[carly.applebaum]

Is C wrong because it generalizes from a group of 30+ yrs of age and it doesn't talk about chronic back pain. Whereas patients could suffer mild back pain might not suffer "chronic" back pain. And hypothetically the percentage of people under 30 could experience 100% back pain. Also, is "rarely" too vague?

[ohthatpatrick]

You hit on several awesome components of why that answer is wrong.

Indeed, it's generalizing about all patients, when we were only provided info about people over 30.

Indeed, it's talking about mild/fleeting pain, when we were only provided info about whether people did or didn't feel chronic pain.

And the issue with "rarely", to me, is not that it's vague, but that it's very extreme. To justify that something "rarely" happens, you have to know that it is true in less than 50% of cases.

Did the paragraph provide us with info that in less than 50% of cases when a spinal disk first becomes herniated/degenerated do people feel even mild/fleeting pain?

No.

===other answers ====

A) "can be sure" is way too extreme

B) "are sure to be free" is way too extreme

D) predictive powers of doctors is out of scope

E) supported by the final sentence. If people got sufficient exercise (a potentially effective strategy), their abs and spinal muscles would not deteriorate as much, and so chronic pain would not develop from their (unbeknownst to them) herniated/degenerated disk.

Nice work!

[HughM388]

You hit on several awesome components of why that answer is wrong.

Indeed, it's generalizing about all patients, when we were only provided info about people over 30.

Indeed, it's talking about mild/fleeting pain, when we were only provided info about whether people did or didn't feel chronic pain.

And the issue with "rarely", to me, is not that it's vague, but that it's very extreme. To justify that something "rarely" happens, you have to know that it is true in less than 50% of cases.

Did the paragraph provide us with info that in less than 50% of cases when a spinal disk first becomes herniated/degenerated do people feel even mild/fleeting pain?

No.

===other answers ====

A) "can be sure" is way too extreme

B) "are sure to be free" is way too extreme

D) predictive powers of doctors is out of scope

E) supported by the final sentence. If people got sufficient exercise (a potentially effective strategy), their abs and spinal muscles would not deteriorate as much, and so chronic pain would not develop from their (unbeknownst to them) herniated/degenerated disk.

Nice work!

It's unfortunate that, for (E) to work, we have to make the fairly reckless assumption that the strategy of exercise alluded to in the stimulus won't exacerbate the disc herniation/degeneration and thereby trigger chronic pain. Seems to me that a lack of exercise could have a powerfully preventive effect on the onset of chronic pain. Hmm…