#20 - A certain viral infection is widespread among children

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Resolve the Paradox. The correct answer choice is (B)

If you were looking to pre-phrase an answer to this question, you would definitely want to aim towards something regarding the possibility that, while antibiotics have no effect on the virus, they may have some effect on a symptom of the virus. Just because a virus often leads to ear infections, doesn’t mean that the ear infections are automatically untreatable by antibiotics just because the virus is untreatable by antibiotics.

Answer choice (A): The fact that some antibiotics are more effective in treating certain types of ear infections than others does nothing to address the issue in the stimulus – how do antibiotics in general clear up ear infections when they have no effect on the virus that seems to lead to ear infections.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. This statement tells us that it is not the virus itself that is causing the ear infections. Instead the virus makes children more susceptible to the bacteria that eventually cause the ear infection. While the antibiotics have no effect on the virus, they obviously do have an effect on the resulting bacteria.

Answer choice (C): This is a category of children that we are not concerned with in answering the question. The stimulus deals only with the children who have the virus and we need to figure out why their situation works the way it does. Any other children who have different ear infections are completely irrelevant to this question.

Answer choice (D): This may very well be true, but it does nothing to explain why this viral infection is untreatable, while the resulting ear infection is treatable.

Answer choice (E): This answer choice would only serve to strengthen the idea that the virus caused the ear infections in some children, thus muddying the water even further.

[kim4956]

I read the answer explanation for this question, but it's still unclear to me why (B) is the answer. Anyone care to explain the reasoning? I chose (D) as my answer, btw.

Thanks!

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi Kim,

We need an explanation for why antibiotics would work on the ear infections, even though the kids are sick with a virus. B provides that. Kids are sick with the virus, but the virus makes them more likely to get a bacterial ear infection on top of the virus; so the antibiotic clears up the bacterial ear infection. Does that help explain it?

[PositiveThinker]

Yet another answer choice that just does not click with me. All answer choice B does is tell you that children infected with the virus are particularly susceptible to bacteria the infect the middle ear. That does not explain *why* the treatment is successful. A reasonable answer choice would say "the antibiotics do not treat the virus but they treat the infection.."

I see an admin made that same prephrase but thats not what answer choice B is saying. I keep reading answer choice B and my reaction is "ok so what? you get the virus and you are more likely going to get the ear infection." please for all that is holy explain how on earth that explains the success of treatments....

[Kristina Moen]

Hi PositiveThinker,

I think the key here is to understand the word "infection" has two different meanings: viral and bacterial. You'll often see this on a Resolve the Paradox question! It is easy to read this stimulus and assume that "middle ear infections" are viral infections, because we're told that 30 percent of kids with the viral infection also get a middle ear infection. See what they did there? The words "viral infection" and "middle ear infection" are close together. And since the antibiotics have no effect on the virus, how is it helping to clear the ear infection?

One possible explanation for why the antibiotics help clear the ear infections is that the ear infections are NOT viral infections at all. But if that's the case, why are they getting ear infections? How is it related? An answer choice that just said "The ear infections are bacterial" wouldn't help because it wouldn't explain both sides of the paradox. Why do 30 percent of virus-infected children get ear infections?

Answer choice (B) helps explain why BOTH parts of the paradox are happening. It explains why 30 percent of virus-infected kids get ear infections (they are now susceptible to bacteria!) and it explains why the antibiotics clear up the infection (it's bacterial, not viral).

Hope this helps! With a Resolve the Paradox, remember that the answer choice must explain BOTH sides. It cannot merely support one side.

[Anali]

I think the key phrase that helped me narrow down the right answer to this question is: "Antibiotics, although effective in treating bacterial infections..."

[whardy21]

I'm completely lost on this question. I chose C for my Answer. My logic was the children who had the ear infection and weren't ejected by the virus showed that while the antibiotic can be effective on the ear infection, not the virus because they didn't catch the virus. Is my logic wrong because we already knew their was not an effect on the virus. Please explain. Thanks.!

[James Finch]

Hi W. Hardy,

The first thing to note is that the scope of the evidence in the stimulus are all dealing with children that have the virus, so we aren't going to be concerned with those that don't have the virus. Instead, we should be prephrasing an alternate cause for the ear infection to the one that the stimulus hints at, but doesn't explicitly state: bacteria, not the virus, are causing the ear infection and that is what allows the antibiotics to "often" clear up the infection. A big hint to this prephrase is that only 30% of the kids infected with the virus actually develop an infection, which means that allows us to create a causal chain that looks like:

Virus infects kids Greater susceptibility to bacteria Bacteria causes ear infection Antibiotics kill bacteria, ending infection

(B) does this, and does so within the proper scope needed. (C), on the other hand, doesn't help because the last sentence that creates the paradox is only talking about kids who are infected with the virus, not those that aren't.

Hope this clears things up!