June 2007.S2.Q17 - hospital executive: at a recent conference

tytcai89

http://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-june-2007-section-2-question-17/
The correct answer choice is B: "[t]he argument relies on the testimony of experts whose expertise is not shown to be sufficiently broad to support THEIR general claim."
I think this choice would only be correct if the "THEIR," the "experts" I assume being the referent, is changed to "its," the argument being the referent, because it is the hospital executive who's making a claim beyond the scope of the testimony of these experts.
Thoughts?

nicole.hopkins

@tytcai89 said:
testimony of experts whose expertise is not shown to be sufficiently broad to support THEIR general claim

Experts. Which experts? Those whose expertise is not shown to be sufficiently broad. Not sufficiently broad to support whose claim? The claim of the experts.

Their expertise is not broad enough to support their own claim.

c.janson35

"Their" is a possessive and is referring to the hospital executives' "general claim", i.e. the argument as a whole is not well supported because it is based on computer experts' claim and there is no evidence that they can competently speak to a hospitals' top needs.

tytcai89

@nicole.hopkins: In your interpretation, the answer choice is attacking a premise of the argument. Isn't that suspect? Should I be expected to have enough "common sense" to know that computer experts' expertise doesn't support their claim on "the most significant threat faced by large institutions?"

@c.janson35: In this question there is only one hospital executive, hence the plural possessive pronoun "their" can only refer to the experts.

c.janson35

In this question, the hospital executive is basing his or her claim on the testimony of experts--plural.

And to your first point, even if you thought that "their" was in fact referring to the singular hospital executive, it would be incorrect to say "its" claim.