Difficulty: Medium
Correct Answer: Vaccination : baby
Explanation:
Introduction / Context:
This analogy question looks at the relationship between a protective or curative agent and the living being or object that receives that protection. Pesticide is a chemical substance applied to plants to protect them from harmful pests and diseases. For the second pair, we must find a medical or health related agent that is applied to or given to a baby in a similar protective way. This tests your ability to interpret functional relationships rather than just direct meanings of individual words.
Given Data / Assumptions:
Concept / Approach:
Pesticide is a protective agent used on plants to prevent or eliminate pests. The relationship is “protective or preventive agent” to “living target that is protected.” In a medical context, vaccination is a preventive treatment given directly to a baby (or person) to protect against diseases. Thus, “vaccination : baby” mirrors “pesticide : plant” as “preventive agent applied to living target.” The other options either relate an agent to a disease or to an abstract cure and therefore do not parallel the structure as closely.
Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: Interpret the first pair. A pesticide is applied to plants to protect them from pests and diseases. Step 2: Recognise the pattern as “something applied to a living thing to protect it from harm.” Step 3: Look for a medical procedure or substance that is similarly applied to or given to a baby. Step 4: Vaccination is administered to babies and children to protect them from future infections by building immunity. Step 5: Therefore, vaccination stands to baby in the same functional way that pesticide stands to plant.
Verification / Alternative check:
Examine each option carefully. Medicine : cure links a substance to the result of treatment, not to the person receiving it. Injection : fever links a method of delivering medicine to a disease, but not to the patient. Sinarest : cold pairs a specific brand medicine with a disease, highlighting treatment of the illness rather than protection of the person as such. Tablet : illness similarly associates a dosage form with a condition. Only Vaccination : baby places the preventive agent and the living being receiving it in the same positions as pesticide : plant.
Why Other Options Are Wrong:
Medicine : cure eliminates the target (disease) from the pair and shows cause and result instead. Injection : fever, Sinarest : cold, and Tablet : illness show agent : disease relationships, not agent : living target. None of these replicate the pattern where a protective substance is applied to a living organism to prevent or fight harm. The structure of pesticide : plant is simply not mirrored by those combinations.
Common Pitfalls:
A frequent mistake is to choose Sinarest : cold because it looks like a clear medical pair, but that choice focuses on treating a disease rather than protecting a living being. Another common error is to consider Injection : fever due to its everyday association with treatment. In analogy questions, always be precise about who or what receives the action, and how that mirrors the given pair.
Final Answer:
The pair that most closely matches the “protective agent applied to living target” pattern is Vaccination : baby, making the analogy “Pesticide : plant :: Vaccination : baby”.
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