#22 - Although severing a motor nerve kills part of the

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[Peterh12]

Hi there,
I had a lot of troubles in understanding the question stem, could you explain it for me and tell me why we should choose D instead of C?
Thanks

[James Finch]

Hi Peter H.,

As a Most Strongly Supported question, a good Prephrase is extremely helpful in parsing out the correct answer choice from attractive incorrect ones. Here, I Prephrased that people could repair nerve damage even after 3 months if there was a way to stop the nerve sheath disintegration or implant new living nerve sheath cells. This would fit with the facts, as the nerves keep growing regardless, but need the nerve sheath to guide them to the correct location.

(C) effectively rules out the possibility that the Prephrase explicitly allows, which tells me that it goes against the facts presented in the stimulus. Looking back over the stimulus, we can see that it goes beyond what is there, and that we could imagine scenarios in which, after three months, nerve functions were restored. Thus, (C) fails our Fact Test.

(D) is similar to the Prephrase, which is always a good sign. It accords with the possibilities left open by the facts in the stimulus, by allowing nerve functions to regenerate if the one thing preventing it--nerve sheathe disintegration--were able to be counteracted. So it passes our Fact Test, and is the correct answer choice.

Hope this clears things up!

[lilRio]

Dear Powerscore,

What question type is this? Must be true, Strengthen, or is this "most strongly support" its own question type?

-MMM

[Adam Tyson]

In our approach, lilRio, we treat "Most Strongly Supported" questions as a subset of "Must Be True." The difference is only one of degree - a "Must Be True" question means the correct answer is 100% guaranteed to be true based on the facts in the stimulus, while a stem that says the correct answer is "most strongly supported" means that the correct answer is the answer that got some support from the stimulus even if it doesn't absolutely have to be true. It's for sure not a Strengthen question, because those have the support going up from the correct answer to the stimulus, while this question is about support going down from the stimulus to the best answer choice. Pick the answer that the stimulus supports, even if the stimulus doesn't totally prove it. Reject all the answers that the stimulus does not support.

[iwishiwasbaking]

Hi,
I chose C in my original PT. I think I see why C is a weak answer choice; the language in AC (C) indicates that without successful regeneration, restoring function is impossible -- which is a bold assumption to make! In my blind review, though, I kept C as my answer, because I thought D was also flawed. The stimulus states that the sheath will disintegrate "unless" there is living tissue. I interpreted this logic as follows:

If ~living tissue --> disintegrate
If ~disintegrate --> living tissue

If my logic here is correct, AC (D) commits a flaw by flipping the sufficient and necessary clauses. So, both C and D seemed slightly flawed to me -- but obviously, there's something stronger about D, as it's the correct answer. Does anyone have any tips on how to get to D, despite these issues? and in cases like these, how do you decide which flaw to overlook?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi iwishiwasbaking,

The reason you don't have conditional issues with answer choice (D) is because it's not invoking the conditional. A conditional statement means EVERY TIME you have the sufficient, you have to have the necessary. Every time it doesn't disintegrate after 3 months, we know there had to be live tissue. And you are correct that we can't say just because there is live tissue, it WON'T disintegrate. But that's not what answer choice (D) says---answer choice (D) is phrased as a possibility, not a certainty. If we could implant and sustain live tissue, the likelihood (possibility) of regeneration would go up. That doesn't say it WILL be possible. That doesn't say it MUST happen. It says it's more likely than it was without the live tissue.

Answer choice (C) is wrong for multiple reasons, partially because we don't know the only way to restore muscle function is through nerve regeneration. There could be many other ways to restore function other than the one way discussed in the stimulus.

Hope that helps!

[AspenHerman]

Hello!

I didn't choose answer D because it seemed like it was adding in outside information that the stimulus did not touch upon. The stimulus did not talk about surgical interventions, it just talked about a three month time frame and the requirements for the nerve to regrow.

I was uneasy choosing C because of the strong language, but it addressed what we knew from within the data provided.

Could I get a little advice as to why D is not considered outside information?

[Robert Carroll]

Aspen,

I think the case is very similar to this question: viewtopic.php?t=850 Note that that question is in the PowerScore course book, in Lesson 1, with the Must Be True questions. In that question, "warm bath" looks like new information, and it is, but the answer is claiming that the warm bath, given that it raises temperature, would have the effect given in the stimulus. That doesn't really count as new information, because the means by which the "new information" is filling a role is by saying something already covered by the stimulus.

It's similar here. Surgical intervention is new. But what is the surgery doing in answer choice (D)? Implanting and sustaining living nerve tissue. That isn't new info - that's a requirement for the preservation of a nerve sheath in some cases in the stimulus. So answer choice (D) is not saying that surgical intervention will preserve living tissue, but saying something like "if living tissue is preserved via surgery, then..." It's not claiming the new info of surgery having an effect, but saying something like "if surgery, for instance, had the effect of preserving living tissue, then a certain consequence has more chance of resulting." Because that consequence and the preservation of living tissue are already covered by the stimulus, we don't have any objectionable new information.

Robert Carroll