medium · GMAT Verbal
A trial sponsored by Echelon Therapeutics found that its drug reduced a laboratory biomarker by 27% relative to placebo. The trial was too short to measure the clinical outcomes, hospitalization and functional decline, that matter most to patients, and mild adverse events were more common in the treatment group. Biomarker improvement may justify a larger trial, but it cannot by itself establish that patients benefit. A surrogate measure is useful only to the extent that changes in it reliably predict changes in meaningful outcomes.
Which new situation most closely follows the principle supported by the passage?
- A software firm validates that a rise in tutorial completion actually predicts lower user error rates before treating completion as proof of improved usability.
- A firm declares that product usability has improved as soon as more users finish an onboarding tutorial, treating completion rates alone as conclusive proof of better usability without testing whether completion predicts lower error rates.
- A researcher rejects every biomarker because it is not itself a clinical outcome.
- A trial measures hospitalization but reports only the biomarker because it changed more.
- A company compares tutorial completion rates with advertising spend and concludes the product is easier to use, even though that pairing never checks whether completion predicts actual reductions in user errors.
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