[a习作temp] argument 57(7月高频）必认真回拍！ [复制链接]

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电梯直达

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发表于 2005-8-5 16:17:29 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

限时写的，字数有点少。不过实在找不出什么错误来了。大家帮忙拍拍吧！
Argument57
------题目------
The following appeared in a newsletter on nutrition and health.
'Although the multimineral Zorba pill was designed as a simple dietary supplement, a study of first-time ulcer patients who took Zorba suggests that Zorba actually helps prevent ulcers. The study showed that only 25 percent of those ulcer patients who took Zorba under a doctor's direction developed new ulcers, compared to a 75 percent recurrence rate among ulcer patients who did not take Zorba. Clearly, then, Zorba will be highly effective in preventing recurrent ulcers and if health experts inform the general public of this fact, many first-time ulcers can be prevented as well.'
------正文------
In the above argument, the author claims that Zorba can prevent not only the recurrence of ulcer but also the first-time ulcers. To justify the conclusion, the author provides evidence based on a study of first-time ulcer patients. At first glance, the argument seems plausible and logical. Closer examination, however, will show that it suffers from several flaws.

First of all, the author provides no evidence that the study is statistically reliable. In evaluating the study, one must consider how the study was conducted, how broad the study was and whether the respondents were representative of general ulcer patients. Lacking above information, the author cannot draw any firm conclusion based on the study.

In addition, the results of the study suffer from many problems. In the first place, the study fails to provide the characters and information about these patients. It is entirely possible that the patients who took Zorba were much healthier and younger than those who didn't. Thus the reason of low recurrence of ulcer may be the health conditions not taking Zorba. In the second place, perhaps the two groups took different medicines which caused the different proportions of recurrences. Or perhaps the doctors who directed the group who took Zorba were better experienced in remedying ulcers than the doctors in the other group. In the third place, even if both groups are same in the aspects discussed above, to the extent that patients who did not take Zorba did not follow the doctor’s direction, it is not surprising to find that most of them recurred to ulcers. Without ruling out these possibilities, the author cannot convince me that the conclusion is warranted.

Finally, even assuming that the recurrence of ulcer can be prevented by Zorba, it is hasty to claim that many first-time ulcers can be prevented as well. It is quite likely that the basis of Zorba to prevent ulcer is that people have got ulcers before. Therefore Zorba may be useless to prevent first-time ulcers. Without taking into account this scenario, I simply cannot take this conclusion seriously.

To sum up, the argument is neither well reasoned nor persuasive. To make the notion more forceful, the author should present us more detailed information about whether the results of the study are reliable and whether Zorba is effective to help prevent ulcers.

It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.