Civil Service Exam Reviewer · Reading Comprehension · hard

The Power of a Sugar Pill

In clinical trials, patients who receive a sugar pill instead of a real drug often report feeling better. This placebo effect is sometimes dismissed as imagination, but it is more interesting than that. Expectation can produce measurable changes in the body, particularly in symptoms such as pain, nausea, and fatigue, which are shaped by how the brain interprets signals. Even the details of a treatment matter: in some studies, larger pills, more expensive-looking packaging, and injections have produced stronger placebo responses than small, plain tablets. Yet the placebo effect has clear limits. A sugar pill will not shrink a tumor, mend a broken bone, or clear a bacterial infection. Its power lies mainly in how illness is experienced rather than in the underlying disease. This is precisely why medical researchers compare new drugs against placebos. If patients taking a new medicine improve no more than those taking a dummy pill, the medicine's apparent benefit may be due entirely to expectation. Understanding the placebo effect thus protects patients in two ways: it reminds doctors that the manner of care can ease suffering, and it prevents ineffective treatments from being mistaken for real cures.

How does the author view the claim that the placebo effect is "merely imagination"?

  1. It is entirely accurate.
  2. It is dangerous and should be banned.
  3. It is supported by every study.
  4. It understates a real but limited phenomenon.

Answer

D. It understates a real but limited phenomenon.

Solution

The author says the effect is "more interesting than that" and produces measurable changes, but also has "clear limits."

More Reading Comprehension questions

  1. The "two ways" in which understanding the placebo effect protects patients are that it
  2. The details about pill size and packaging suggest that
  3. Based on the passage, a placebo is most likely to help with
  4. Why do researchers compare new drugs against placebos?
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  6. On what point do both sides agree?
  7. In the economists' argument, hoarding is a result of
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  10. The researchers mentioned would advise a correction that

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