Q21 - Several people came down

[geverett]

I'm surprised there is not yet a discussion on this one. Is (C) wrong because it tries to bring an allergic reaction into the discussion when all we have information about it is an illness caused by bacteria. I'm guessing the elimination of this answer choice hinges on the distinction between an allergic reaction and a bacterial reaction. thoughts?

[gilad.bendheim]

Yeah, I think the allergic reaction is out of the scope because the stimulas is concerned with bacteria. But perhaps even more basically, the stimulas concludes with the assertion that "health officials remained confident that contaminated seafood from this restaurant caused the cases of illness." Choice (C) would not help resolve this paradox at all, because it would pin the sickness (the wrong sickness, at that) on MSG in the sauce, and thus distinct from the seafood, which, according to (C) may or may not have led to illness (it only says that it was contaminated).

This is the same reason that I think choice (B) - another tricky answer - is wrong, because it would move the illness away from the seafood and onto the waiter, who could have just as well have brought it in from the lunch he ate at the corner deli or himself have contracted it from another customer, which would not help us resolve the paradox.

Only (E) brings in the contaminated food and bridges the gap between the presence of the people in the restaurant, them getting the illness, and the health officials being convinced that the illness originated with seafood in that restaurant.

[jlz1202]

I have chosen B and when review I find I failed to locate the paradox. Could you please help confirm?

several people eat seafood @ the same restaurant same day become ill

conflicts with:

most people eat seafood @ the same restaurant are not ill

(compared to other resolve the paradox question, this paradox is not quite "paradoxical" I think...)

the reason why B is incorrect: that a waiter spread the illness would probably conflict with the premise "most people do not become ill" as one waitress could serve a lot of people besides the several ill.

Any thought would be appreciated!

[maryadkins]

(B) leaves too much open, as Gilad noted. Okay, well he got it too--that stinks! But how did he get it--from the seafood or not? And did he serve the others who didn't get it?

several people eat seafood @ the same restaurant same day become ill

conflicts with:

most people eat seafood @ the same restaurant are not ill

Good way of understanding the paradox here. When I spotted this, I thought, ah, okay, but maybe "most" people didn't get sick. The few who DID, however, were the ones who ate there, and ate the seafood WITH the bacteria. That's (E).

[tzyc]

Hi,

I understand why (E) is correct but why is (A) wrong?
I thought since the stimuli says "several people" and (A) says "most people", they may not overlap so just those who contracted the illness did not have immune, and the bacteria still actually existed in the restaurant→resolve the discrepancy...could someone give an explanation plz?

[alandman]

The way I think about answer choice B is as follows:

The stimulus says that despite the fact that most people didn`t get sick from eating at that specific restaurant, health officials are confident that the contaminated seafood came from the restaurant.

The paradox as I see it is:

Most people didn`t get sick on the same date at the same restaurant

vs

Health officials still decided that the contaminated food came from the restaurant.

Answer choice B tells us that the people that got sick came in contact with the waiter who subsequently got sick. In my opinion, this answer choice doesn`t solve the paradox because if coming in contact with the waiter who got sick subsequently actually deepens the paradox, as the waiter could`ve came down with the bacteria outside the restaurant, or even got infected from one of the customers and not from the contaminated food in the restaurant. This would go against the cause given in the stimulus.

Given that the question stems asks for an answer that most helps to resolve the paradox, E is a little bit better than C.

As far as answer choice A is concerned, I eliminated it because knowing that most people are immune to the effects of the bacteria doesn`t stop them from coming in contact with it.

[AyakiK696]

So D is wrong for this question because it's too broad, right? And E is correct because it reaffirms that the people who got sick all come from the same group?

[ohthatpatrick]

We go in thinking ...
GIVEN THAT
most ppl who ate seafood didn't come into contact with the bacteria

HOW CAN WE EXPLAIN THAT
Health officials are confident that SEAFOOD is what caused the illnesses


(E) seems like a way more convincing reason to believe that SEAFOOD was the cause.
(D) doesn't discuss seafood in any way, so it doesn't help us hone in our our objective.