You draw conclusions about things every day. For example, if you see your mom decorating a cake, and you know that your brother has a birthday coming up, you’re likely to conclude that your mom is making the cake for him.
To draw your conclusion, you put two facts together—one that you observed and one that you already knew. When you draw conclusions based on what you read or observe during a research project, you do a very similar thing: You put facts together to figure out something more—or bigger and broader—than what appears in any of your sources.
Use this activity to practice drawing conclusions based on the facts in two different sources. The two excerpts below were created by two different government agencies, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Each excerpt provides a slightly different set of facts about the uses of mushrooms for medical purposes. Read both passages, looking for similarities and differences in their content. Then answer the questions that follow.
Example 1
A large variety of mushrooms have been utilized traditionally in many different cultures for the maintenance of health, as well as in the prevention and treatment of diseases through their immunomodulatory and antineoplastic properties. In the last decade, the interest for pharmaceutical potential of mushrooms has been increased rapidly, and it has been suggested that many mushrooms are like mini-pharmaceutical factories producing compounds with miraculous biological properties. In addition, the expanded knowledge of the molecular basis of tumorigenesis and metastasis has given the opportunity for discovering new drugs against abnormal molecular and biochemical signals leading to cancer.
Example 2
The following study looked at reishi mushrooms for the prevention of colorectal cancer: In Japan, 225 patients with benign colorectal tumors were studied. For 12 months, 123 of the patients were given an extract of the mushroom G. lucidum mycelia (MAK), while 102 patients did not receive treatment with MAK. At 12 months, a follow-up colonoscopy was done on all the patients. The number and the size of the tumors decreased in the group that received MAK, but not in the group that did not receive MAK. The researchers suggest that MAK may help stop benign colorectal tumors from forming.According to the first excerpt, what medical uses do mushrooms have?
According to the second excerpt, what did the Japanese study suggest about reishi mushrooms’ effect on tumors of the colon?
What inference can you draw about the confidence the writers of the first excerpt have in the medical properties of mushrooms?
Compared to the writers of the first excerpt, how confident are the writers of the second excerpt in mushrooms’ medical properties?
| Your Responses | Sample Answers |
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Mushrooms have been used in traditional medicines to maintain health and treat illness. In modern times, the chemicals produced by mushrooms are being investigated as medicines. |
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The Japanese study suggests that daily doses of reishi mushroom extract prevent benign tumors from forming in the colon. |
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The writers of the first excerpt appear to have great confidence in the medical properties of mushrooms. They refer to mushrooms as “mini-pharmaceutical factories” that have “miraculous” properties. |
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The writers of the second excerpt are not as exuberant in their claims about medical mushrooms. They use neutral language to report the results of one small study in Japan investigating one mushroom’s possible effects on one type of condition, benign colorectal tumors. |
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