medium · GMAT Verbal
A trial sponsored by Boreal Therapeutics found that its drug reduced a laboratory biomarker by 18% 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 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, treating the surrogate as decisive.
- A company compares tutorial completion with advertising spend and calls the product easier to use without checking whether completion predicts fewer user errors.
- 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 usability improved as soon as more users finish a tutorial.
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