GRE Argument ---antibiotics study results

Please help me to ammend my GRE argument.
I also want to konw when you write this kind of article, do you have the habit to attack the major logical mistakes first and then attack the minor logical mistakes.

I will appreciate your work! Thanks！

51.The following appeared in a medical newsletter.

"Doctors have long suspected that secondary infections may keep some
patients from healing quickly after severe muscle strain. This hypothesis
has now been proved by preliminary results of a study of two groups of
patients. The first group of patients, all being treated for muscle
injuries by Dr. Newland, a doctor who specializes in sports medicine, took
antibiotics regularly throughout their treatment. Their recuperation time
was, on average, 40 percent quicker than typically expected. Patients in
the second group, all being treated by Dr. Alton, a general physician,
were given sugar pills, although the patients believed they were taking
antibiotics. Their average recuperation time was not significantly
reduced. Therefore, all patients who are diagnosed with muscle strain
would be well advised to take antibiotics as part of their treatment."

Before suggesting all patients who are diagnosed with muscle strain to take antibiotics as part of their treatment, the evidence given in the argument shoud be scrutinized from several other angles. The author seems to place full confidence on the results conducted by the researchers that taking atibiotics may enable some patients to recover quicker after secondary infections of severe muscle strian without examing other factors which may affected the study results. In addition, the author hastily concluded that antibiotics can be applied to all patients who are diagnosed with muscle strain as part of their treatment.

First of all, granted that taking antibiotics may enable some patients to quicken recovery time after secondary infections of severe muscle strian, there is no guarantee that secondary infection will definitely happen in those patients with muscle strain or that those patients are more likely to suffer secondary infection. Thus, without better evidence that secondary infection will certainly happen, the conclusion seems unconvincing. Further, unless the arguer can give sufficient evidence to show that those some patients are representative of all patients who suffer muscle strain, it is impossible to confidently apply some patients's results to all patients. Because we know nothing about the age, background, and general health of those "some patients", it is entirely possible that the study result only suitable for those whose age are below 20, or that the sufferers are all in good condition except secondary infection after strain muscle. Besides, the argument unfairly assumes that antibiotics will take effect in all sorts of muscle strain. The arguer provides no imformation about the types of muscle strain. Lacking such evidence it is entirely possible that antibiotics does not work in those who merely suffer ordinary muscle strain.

However, the study result that antibiotics can accelerate the cure time does not convince me and therefore, the claim is actually dubious. The study result is on the basis of two groups of patients who are separately given antibiotics and sugar pills , the author failed to provide imformation on the age, background, gender, and general health of the patients. If the patients, taking antibiotics in one group, are all male adolescents in robust health while patients in another group, having sugar pills, are all male elders in weak health. It exists the possibility that it is just because of their younger age and healthier body condition that speed up the healing process of those taking antibiotics rather than the antibiotics themselves do. The same is true that the professional level of the doctors and the remedy doctors applied might differ, these factors, may contribute to the difference of recuperation process, but the author failed to provide these imformation. Generally, doctors who specialize in sports medicine are more skillful in treating muscle strain than those general physicians. As a result, patients who were treated by sports doctor might recover quicker than those were cured by general physician. For that matter, it is possible that it is the higher treatment level and more effective therapy that shortened the healing time.

Additionally, for an controlled experiment, the author omits to inform us what effect that sugar pills act on patients in the second group. The arguer eliminate the possibility that sugar pills might possessed the function to slow down recuperation time. Without considering this possibility, the two study groups would not be comparable and it either can not demonstrate that antibiotics can quicken recuperation time.

In sum, as it stands the argument is wholly unpersuasive. To bolster it the author must provide some fundamental imformation about the backgroud, gender, health of the patients. The author must also give imformation on the doctors' background, such as professional level. To better assess the argument it would be useful to know whether all patients would suffer secondary infection after muscle strain, and what kind of muscle strain they bear. Also useful would be any imformation about whether the study results can typify all patients.

The "all" in this sentence seems to be the place to attack.

You make a coherent argument about sampling but I am torn about it. This article appeared in a medical newsletter. If the study was performed at an institution of sufficient credibility for its studies to be written up in a medical newsletter, then we can assume that the research review board of the institution required that standard sampling procedures be followed. A study with healthy adolescents in one group and ailing elders in the other would not be approved. Indeed, procedures to avoid such an outcome would be required. These procedures would be reported in the full research report but would be too lengthy to list in a newsletter (although it would be good for the writer of such a newsletter article to note that all of the patients were at the same level of health or that muscle injury patients were randomly sampled over a period of time).

What I'm trying to say here is that I wonder if you are, in this essay, inadvertently demonstrating that you don't know that medical research is supervised and that things like sampling and consent are overseen by review boards that ensure that basic scientific and ethical procedures are followed. Either way, I feel sure that what they want you to focus on is the major logical error in the last sentence. Even if the study is valid, we cannot conclude that all patients diagnosed with muscle strain ought to be treated with antibiotics.

Watch the spelling. Information not Imformation.

Thanks for your comment on my essay!
The "GRE argument" itself is designed as a argument that has several flaws logically. So we are required to attack the flaws as long as they exist there, and the ETS doesn't need us to consider the credibility of the argument. As long as we can find an anti-example, we can prove the argument is logically unsound. The above is my understanding of GRE argument. Anyway, thanks for your advice.

In addition, I wish you could help me to find out some language mistakes in my essay. We foreign students are often criticized by misusing the words.

Thanks!

Overall, this is a fairly strong GRE essay. I'm going to disagree with Simone, though:


Actually, I liked the critique of what the study didn't say, and thought it was the strongest part of your essay. Blindly trusting the authorities in any area to do the right thing seems anathema to critical thinking. One would hope that a reputable medical journal would insist on proper sampling procedures, but maybe it doesn't. Or maybe the editors overlooked an error on the part of the researchers by mistake. Or maybe the researchers were such big names that the editors didn't review it as closely as they should have. Or maybe the lead researcher was the editor's brother. Or maybe the report supports a view that the editors have a vested interest in believing, and they didn't scrutinize it carefully because it conformed to their own preexisting biases. Who knows? Certainly not the reader, who knows only that, for some reason, crucial information about the study wasn't included in the report.

That said, Simone is right that you should also focus on the "all" part. Even if it is true that secondary infections are a serious problem in increasing recovery time, presumably only those who actually develop such infections should be treated. Giving healthy people antibiotics is a great way to render those antibiotics utterly useless in a couple of years. Also, different sub-groups of the population may have been helped differently. So, for instance, the antibiotics may have dramatically slashed recovery time for, say, elderly males, while having no noticeable effect on teenage girls. Even if the composition of the two groups was the same, if each group contained a representative sample of the overall population, the average decrease noted might have come entirely from certain demographic groups.

Thanks very much EF_Sean!
This is my first GRE argument essay. Thanks for your precious advice!
I will try my best to do better in my following essays!

I am in favor of Simone. What you really should focus on is the last sentense. Since you have only 30 minutes for writing, you should focus on the mail logical error and pay more attention to it. This is my personal view.