How will the right answer fit in terms of support and conclusion?

Only the right answer will accurately describe both the support and the conclusion. That also means it will be the only one that gets the flaw right.

Highlight the main conclusion in the passage, if there is one:

This casts doubt on the claim made by some medical ethicists that many test subjects resent being given placebos

Columnist: [SUPPORT]. [CONCLUSION].

There’s only a pretty subtle shift in the wording the author uses between these two long sentences. But that still means the passage changes the subject. The support says people “accept the risk” of ineffective meds, but the conclusion says that means they don’t “resent” it. But I could totally still resent something, even if I accepted the risk beforehand. The right answer will call that out.

Map the wording of the answers to the wording of the passage:

(A) infers that two phenomena are associated…

In a right answer, “infers” will always correctly describe the conclusion. This conclusion isn’t about the correlation between “two phenomena”.

(B) …the opinions of people who are unlikely to be qualified…

The people in the evidence are just test subjects. They’re not giving “opinions” when they sign a consent form.

(C) …a sample that is likely to be unrepresentative.

It’s “subjects” who are sampled, and the conclusion is about “test subjects”. That’s the same group, so there’s no representativeness issue. That would be like if you made a conclusion that most people have dogs based on a survey you took right outside a pet store.

(D) …do not change their attitudes…

This is nailing it. If they accepted the risk beforehand, and don’t resent the placebo after the fact, it’s fair to say their attitudes haven’t changed. Very annoying that the words “risk” and “resent” don’t appear in this answer, but that’s what makes hard ones hard.

(E) …about a moral issue…

No, no it isn’t. Don’t read a “moral issue” into this just because the claim comes from “ethicists”. The conclusion isn’t about what’s right or wrong.

(D) is the correct answer.

Common pattern/s in this question: Catching that the author changed the subject by using new wording in the conclusion is a huge advantage on this one. It’s pretty easy to waste a lot of time reading and re-reading these really wordy answers otherwise.