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  3. An ancient, traditional remedy for insomnia—the scent of lavender flowers—has no

An ancient, traditional remedy for insomnia—the scent of lavender flowers—has no

游客2024-01-12  33
问题 An ancient, traditional remedy for insomnia—the scent of lavender flowers—has now been proved effective. In a recent study, 30 volunteers with chronic insomnia slept each night for three weeks on lavender-scented pillows in a controlled room where their sleep was monitored electronically. During the first week, volunteers continued to take their usual sleeping medication. They slept soundly but wakened feeling tired. At the beginning of the second week, the volunteers discontinued their sleeping medication. During that week, they slept less soundly than the previous week and felt even more tired. During the third week, the volunteers slept longer and more soundly than in the previous two weeks. Therefore, the study proves that lavender cures insomnia within a short period of time.
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
选项
答案     In this argument, the author claims that the scent of lavender flowers can effectively cure insomnia. This conclusion comes from an experiment involving 30 volunteers, in which patients with chronic insomnia were treated with lavender-scented pillows. It was observed that after the exposure to lavender scent patients slept longer and more soundly than before. Hence the author concludes that the improved sleeping quality must be attributable to the scent of lavender. Under close scrutiny, although it might be true that lavender is effective in curing insomnia, this is not a conclusion that can reasonably derived by the current experimental setup. More evidence is certainly needed to fully evaluate the effect of lavender scent on sleeping.
    To begin with, we need more evidence to evaluate if the duration and the quality of sleeping equal to the readiness to fall asleep. Insomnia, by definition, is somebody’s inability to fall asleep due to various reasons. Here in the experiment, however, the time each patient took to fall asleep was not reported. As a result, it remains unclear if those patients fall asleep faster when exposed to lavender scent than before. To solve this question, we need data on how fast (or slow) those patients fall asleep during the experiment period. It might turn out, for example, that patients find it even harder to fall asleep with the presence of an unfamiliar scent, which would invalidate the author’s conclusion. On the other hand, if the monitoring data suggests that once the lavender-scented pillows were introduced, patients fell asleep significantly faster, it would be reasonable to attribute the lessening of insomnia to lavender scent.
    Furthermore, even if we assume momentarily that sleeping quality and duration can represent how easily one falls asleep in this experimental condition, more evidence is needed to elucidate what effect lavender treatment has on insomnia. The current experiment involving 30 volunteers has a serious confounding factor: while the patients showed improved sleep quality at the beginning of the third week is due to the scent of lavender, they had also taken their regular sleeping medication at the beginning of the trial. It could be the case that the lavender-scented pillows did not have any substantial improving effect, and the improvement observed in the third week was the result of the discontinuation of medications. To more clearly examine the effect (or lack thereof) of lavender scent, more information is certainly needed and may be produced by additional experiments. For example, a trial with both controlled and experimental groups subjecting to the same conditions except the scent of the pillows would help answer if the lavender scent is effective. A negative result would of course weaken the author’s current conclusion, while a positive result would strengthen it.
    Finally, granted that the aforementioned assumptions are true, the author’s conclusion relies on another important assumption that chronic insomnia and regular insomnia are the same. However, this assumption has not been substantiated, and we need more evidence to evaluate such a linkage. New information may show that chronic insomnia has a different cause compared to the regular one, and what is effective in treating chronic insomnia turns out to be futile with regard to the other. Yet, it is chronic insomnia that all volunteers suffer from in the experiment testing the efficacy of lavender-scented pillows and the author’s conclusion somehow applies to all insomnia patients. In this case, this assumption turns out wrong and his or her conclusion would be seriously challenged. On the other hand, new evidence that shows a common pathological trigger of different types of insomnia will strengthen the author’s argument.
    To sum up, while the experiment indeed found better sleeping quality and longer sleeping duration in insomnia patients after exposure to lavender-scented pillows, it remains unclear first whether the inability to fall asleep is actually alleviated and second whether the effect of lavender is immediate. Lastly, chronic insomnia and regular insomnia might have different origins and more evidence is needed to investigate the applicability of lavender scent in treating insomnia. (667 words)
解析     本题是GRE Argument题库当中最难的几道题之一，究其原因在于它的逻辑乍看之下是合理的：
    第一周：有pillow也有药——睡得好，累+第二周：有pillow无药——睡不好，更累+第三周：有pillow无药——睡眼变得好了→结论：Iavender枕头治好了insomnia
    换而言之，如果我们只看患者随着时间的变化，似乎确实可以得出有了薰衣草香味的枕头之后睡眠质量变好的结论。这道题的难点就在于，如果我们只纠缠病人随着时间的症状变化，可以写的点并不多——最主要的点是存在药物和时间这两个混淆因素，这也是本文第二主旨段所说的。接受过一些基础生物学训练的同学会知道，要想研究一种药物对于人体是否有作用，最好的办法是大样本随机双盲实验，并且对照组是安慰剂。很显然我们不能按照一个科学实验的要求来审视本题，但是我们不妨想一想为什么要通过对照实验来证明一个物质的有效性?这里我们要引出本题最大的问题，也是这个Argument中非常隐蔽、很高级的一条线：偷换概念。本题中作者至少偷换了两次概念，首先是把失眠(难以入睡)换成了睡眠质量。不可否认，也许失眠的人睡眠质量会差，但是从严格定义来说，不能从睡眠质量反推有没有失眠的现象存在。如果我们要真正研究薰衣草对于失眠患者是否有帮助，要记录的信息不是他们的睡眠质量，而应该是入睡的时间。
    本题存在的第二个偷换概念之处是，默认引发不同失眠的因素是一致的，具体来说是把志愿者所得的慢性失眠症推广到了所有的失眠症患者上。从慢性失眠的描述就不难看出，也许还有短暂性失眠，对于这些人薰衣草是否有效呢?题目没有给出足够的信息来回答这一问题。当我们把这条偷换概念的暗线指出来之后，文章的思路就豁然开朗了，文章的分数也自然不会低。因为题目概念偷换的技巧很高，隐蔽性很强，所以是GRE最难的几道题之一。
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