#2 - Several studies have shown that hospitals are not all

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below! Thanks!

[LSAT2020]

Our conclusion seems to be that money isn't an issue in regards to the difference in mortality rates between the two hospitals. The author proceeds to say that since it's not a money issue, then the quality of staff is to blame for the discrepancy. However, this argument is weak because it fails to account for other possibilities. What if the hospital with the high mortality rates is located in an area where there are a lot of older folks who tend to have more health complications and thus pushes up the hospital's mortality rates, in comparison to the other hospital which is located in a community that has a younger group of people living in it's surroundings?

I ended up going with answer choice B- it was very close to what I had predicted.

[Adam Tyson]

Well done, LSAT2020! But the conclusion isn't that money is not an issue - that's actually a premise, and it is used to support the conclusion that the cause must be a difference in the quality of care. A good prephrase might be "something else makes the hospitals different." Different kinds of patients, as you predicted, would do the job nicely!

[LSAT2020]

I appreciate the feedback!!

[menkenj]

I chose (B) and understand why it is right but I am trying to understand more about why (E) is wrong. Can you please explain?

thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

This is a causal argument, menkenj, as the author is talking about the quality of care being "responsible for" the differences by hospital. To weaken that we need an alternate cause, or the cause without the effect, of the effect without the cause, or a reversed cause and effect, or a problem with the data. Answer E provides none of these, while answer B gives us a good alternate cause.

Read through E and ask yourself what it tells you about differences by hospital, or differences in quality. Does it give some other cause? Does it attack any data? Does it suggest that the cause and effect are backwards, or that one of them occurs at a time when the other does not? I think you'll find that it does none of those things, and is therefore just not relevant to the argument.

[menkenj]

This is a causal argument, menkenj, as the author is talking about the quality of care being "responsible for" the differences by hospital. To weaken that we need an alternate cause, or the cause without the effect, of the effect without the cause, or a reversed cause and effect, or a problem with the data. Answer E provides none of these, while answer B gives us a good alternate cause.

Read through E and ask yourself what it tells you about differences by hospital, or differences in quality. Does it give some other cause? Does it attack any data? Does it suggest that the cause and effect are backwards, or that one of them occurs at a time when the other does not? I think you'll find that it does none of those things, and is therefore just not relevant to the argument.

Thanks, Adam! It seems like it would be helpful for me to put more emphasis on pointing out C/E elements as I sometimes miss that feature. Would it be helpful to spend time after an LR section to guess the modifiers (C/E, S/N, #%, FL, etc) as a way to more explicitly call attention to these elements? In other words, would that sort of practice help train my brain to pick up on C/E and other key elements more effectively? Is there a better way?

Thanks again for your comments.

[KelseyWoods]

Hi menkenj!

Yes, it could be helpful to go through and analyze stimuli looking for causal/conditional/etc. indicator language. But with causal reasoning especially, it's important to focus on the relationships. There are frequently causal arguments that don't include common causal indicators. So look for relationships where one thing is actively causing another thing to occur. It's making it happen. It's resulting in something. Keep an eye out for that type of relationship and you'll start noticing more causal reasoning.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey