NDA (II) 2016 GAT Q28: The belief in the ________ of vaccination is gaining

Q: What is the answer to NDA (II) 2016 GAT Q28?

C. Correct — C, efficacy. 'Efficacy' is the power of a treatment to produce the effect it is meant to produce, and that — whether vaccination actually works — is precisely the thing people can hold a growing belief in.

NDA (II) 2016 General Ability Test · Question 28 of 150

Question text verified against the official NDA question paper.

The belief in the ________ of vaccination is gaining ground.

(a)immunity
(b)prevalence
(c)efficacy
(d)workability

Answer

Why

Correct — C, efficacy. 'Efficacy' is the power of a treatment to produce the effect it is meant to produce, and that — whether vaccination actually works — is precisely the thing people can hold a growing belief in.

Why the others are wrong

(a)immunity — Immunity is what vaccination gives to the person vaccinated; 'the immunity of vaccination' wrongly makes the procedure itself the thing that is immune.
(b)prevalence — 'Prevalence' is how widespread something is, a matter of counting rather than of belief, so it does not sit under 'the belief in'.
(d)workability — 'Workability' asks whether a plan can be put into practice at all, not whether the thing produces its intended medical effect, so it answers a different question.

Concept

A word-choice item that separates four abstract nouns by the exact relation each one has to the noun after 'of'.

The frame 'the belief in the X of vaccination' does two things at once — X has to be something one can believe in, and X has to be a property that vaccination itself possesses. Immunity fails the second test and prevalence fails the first, which leaves the pair that both describe working, and of those only efficacy is about producing the intended effect.

Key facts

Efficacy is distinguished in medicine from effectiveness — efficacy is how well something works under controlled trial conditions, effectiveness how well it works in ordinary use.
'Efficacy' and 'efficient' both come from Latin efficere, to bring about or accomplish.

Study next

Abstract nouns formed from adjectives — efficacy, prevalence, immunity, workabilityThe frame test — checking that a noun fits both halves of an 'of' phraseVocabulary of medicine and public health in comprehension passages

Common traps

Picking the word most strongly associated with the topic rather than the word the sentence frame allows.

Asked as a fill-the-blank item where the noun after 'of' quietly rules out the topic word that first comes to mind.

Related PYQs

NDA_GAT_2017_I_Q92017Open & attempt →

The dictator of that country was a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his ________ for blood and plunder.

(a) idea
(b) vision
(c) lust
(d) intention

Answer(c) lust

Both items line up four abstract nouns and let the words on either side of the blank decide. There, 'insatiable' and 'for blood and plunder' admit only a noun of craving; here, 'belief in' and 'of vaccination' admit only a noun for the power to produce an effect.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the word that best fills the blank — Trials have now established the ________ of the new drug against the infection.
- (a)prevalence
- (b)efficacy
- (c)immunity
- (d)occurrence
Answer(b) efficacy — the trials measure whether the drug produces the intended effect.
practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the word that best fills the blank — The survey measured the ________ of anaemia among schoolchildren in the district.
- (a)efficacy
- (b)immunity
- (c)prevalence
- (d)workability
Answer(c) prevalence — the survey counts how widespread the condition is.