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From PT 29, section 1, question 15

Ordinary mountain sickness,a common condition among mountain climbers,and one from which most people can recover,is caused by the characteristic shortage of oxygen in the atmosphere at high altitudes.Cerebral edema,a rarer disruption of blood circulation in the brain that quickly becomes lifethreatening if not correctly treated from its onset, can also be caused by a shortage of oxygen.Since the symptoms of cerebral edema resemble those of ordinary mountain sickness,cerebral edema is especially dangerous at high altitudes.

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

(A) The treatment for ordinary mountain sickness differs from the treatment for cerebral edema. (B) Cerebral edema can cause those who suffer from it to slip into a coma within a few hours. (C) Unlike cerebral edema,ordinary mountain sickness involves no disruption of blood circulation in the brain. (D) Shortage of oxygen at extremely high altitudes is likely to affect thinking processes and cause errors of judgment. (E) Most people who suffer from ordinary mountain sickness recover without any special treatment

Why is the correct answer A and not B? It seems to me we are trying to show that, even though these two conditions are similar, Cerebral edema is "especially dangerous." Causing a coma is more necessary to the claim that CE is dangerous than if the treatments were not the same for the two sicknesses

that isn't necessary. B could be replaced with something like "it causes you to explode." on the other hand, A MUST be true, because if they did have the same treatment, it wouldn't matter if you couldn't differentiate between the 2. imagine if one required Tylenol and the other required brain surgery. If I gave tylenol to someone with cerebral edema (which required brain surgery), they would die. if both only required Tylenol, then it wouldn't matter.

also, you're not supposed to post whole questions on TLS because they are copyrighted.

To me, the primary idea of the paragraph is that cerebral edema is dangerous, because it needs to be treated quickly and resembles something that is far less serious. If the treatment for both conditions were the same - i.e. drink a cup of tea, it wouldn't really matter which you had. You would drink a cup of tea for either and be fine while not knowing what was wrong. That's why A] is right.

B] it's kind of just like further detailing something... it doesn't really add anything. From the prompt, we already know that cerebral edema is dangerous... something a coma would fall into. I suppose the timing could work.

C D & E seem to not really add anything in my mind.