According to the passage, which of the following options is a fact?
2025
According to the passage, which of the following options is a fact?
Answer: A. The advent of antipsychotic medications revolutionised the treatment of mental disorders. — Concept. A passage-based fact question asks which statement the passage will bear out. A statement qualifies when the passage asserts it — in those words, or…
- A.
The advent of antipsychotic medications revolutionised the treatment of mental disorders.
- B.
Lobotomy did not result in significant improvements in the treatment of mental illnesses.
- C.
Lobotomy had no adverse effects on patients' cognitive functions or emotional states.
- D.
António Egas Moniz was not a prominent figure in the medical community during his time.
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Correct answer: A
Concept. A passage-based fact question asks which statement the passage will bear out. A statement qualifies when the passage asserts it — in those words, or as an unambiguous restatement of them — so every candidate lands in exactly one of three buckets: borne out by the text, contradicted by the text, or never taken up by it. Only the first bucket can supply the answer, because a contradicted statement is false against the source, and a statement the source never takes up cannot be settled from it, however plausible outside knowledge makes it look. Where a candidate paraphrases rather than quotes, test the paraphrase clause by clause against the sentence it restates: a paraphrase that only names what the source describes, or supplies a summary word for an effect the source already reports, is still the source's own claim, whereas one that introduces a fact the source never gives is not.
Application. Sort each candidate statement against what the passage actually says:
Candidate statement | What the passage says | Bucket |
|---|---|---|
The advent of antipsychotic medications revolutionised the treatment of mental disorders. | “New medications for mental illnesses, developed in the 1950s, provided a safer and more effective treatment,” and the use of lobotomy decreased around them. The 1950s drugs for mental illness are the antipsychotics, and treatment that is safer, more effective and displaces the older surgery is what “revolutionised the treatment” sums up. | Borne out by the text |
Lobotomy did not result in significant improvements in the treatment of mental illnesses. | The text gives the aim (“to reduce symptoms”), the early reception (“seen as a big breakthrough”) and the harms, but never measures how far symptoms actually improved. | Never taken up |
Lobotomy had no adverse effects on patients' cognitive functions or emotional states. | Many patients “had trouble thinking clearly, and lost their emotional depth”; some were permanently disabled or died. | Contradicted |
António Egas Moniz was not a prominent figure in the medical community during his time. | He created the procedure in the 1930s and it “quickly became popular in Europe and the United States”, but the text never states his standing among doctors of his day. | Never taken up |
Cross-check. Apply the paraphrase test to the two candidates that look plausible at first glance. The medication statement restates a sentence the passage really contains: the 1950s medicines for mental illness are the antipsychotics, “safer and more effective treatment” is the source's own measure of their impact, and the passage adds that lobotomy's use fell away around them — the paraphrase supplies a name and a summary word for claims the sentence already makes, so it remains the passage's own claim. The statement that lobotomy produced no significant improvement introduces a fact the passage never supplies: the text gives the aim, the early reception and the harms, but never weighs how far symptoms improved, and at one point it runs the other way, calling the surgery “a big breakthrough” when it first appeared. That claim and the claim about Moniz's standing fail in the same way, for want of anything in the text that takes them up, while the claim of no adverse effects is contradicted outright by the record of clouded thinking and lost emotional depth.
Result. The fact the passage establishes is that the advent of antipsychotic medications revolutionised the treatment of mental disorders.