Recent epidemiological studies report that Country X has the lowest incidence of disease P of any country. Neverthele...

Mehran on November 21, 2015

Thank you for your question @dfolave. This is a Paradox logical reasoning question. Typically, such questions include a stimulus that consists of a set of facts. That is the case here. The trouble is, the facts seem to contradict each other at first glance:

On the one hand, recent studies indicate that Country X has the lowest incidence of a certain disease of any country. On the other, those residents of Country X who have the bad luck to get the disease are much more likely to die from it. What gives?

We need to select the answer choice that resolves this apparent discrepancy. That is answer choice (C), which would explain these two facts. If, in Country X, people just don't get a diagnosis of this disease unless they have one of the most severe cases of it, then it would make sense that those people are much more likely to die from this disease in Country X.

Answer choice (E) is incorrect because it does nothing to reconcile BOTH facts we are given. It's too broad--it talks about "more potentially fatal illnesses"--and not specific enough--it does not address the unique facts presented in the stimulus about one particular illness and its prevalence and mortality rate in Country X.

Hope this helps. I encourage you to review the introduction to the Paradox lecture in the Logical Reasoning section of the app. Please let us know if you have any additional questions.

Maroun on March 18, 2019

Hi,

Wouldn't answer choice A be plausible? I understand answer choice C may be more specific, but in A, we could assume that country X has the less contagious form of the disease, and since it is a different form, it could also have a higher mortality rate. I know this choice requires us to infer more information, but in paradox questions, so long as something is plausible (and answers the discrepancy), the answer should not be wrong..