LSAT 126 – Section 4 – Question 25

LSAT 126 - Section 4 - Question 25

October 2008

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT126 S4 Q25
+LR
+Exp
Weaken +Weak
Causal Reasoning +CausR
Sampling +Smpl
A
6%
157
B
1%
155
C
89%
164
D
2%
155
E
2%
154
139
147
155
 +Medium 147.084 +SubsectionMedium

Very clever argument. We're told that we have two groups of patients, 43 to each group. Everyone's got the same illness and receiving the same treatment. The ONLY difference is that one group is the kumbaya group. You know, we want to test the effectiveness (if it exists) of kumbaya so we isolate it. Okay, so... this is exciting what are the results? Well, the next premise tells us that after 200 years, everyone's dead. Therefore (the conclusion says), kumbaya does nothing.

See how ridiculous that argument is? I know I said 200 years whereas the actual premise said 10 years. But, 10 could also be just as ridiculous depending on what assumptions we entertain. How old are the patients? If they're 20 years old, then okay, fine, 10 years is whatever. If they're 100 years old already, then a 10 years later result is ridiculous to report. Of course everyone's dead.

That's precisely the subtly that (C) calls out. (C) says "Look, you should have reported on the results 8 years after, not 10. If you reported 8 years later, then most of the kumbaya group would be alive, while most of the non-kumbaya group would be dead."

(A) is tempting and it certainly doesn't help the argument, but it's a big stretch to say that it hurts the argument. First, we're left with just 4 data points of the original 86. It would be overgeneralizing to say something about the 86 sample from the 4 data points. Second, consider just the data points themselves. All we're told is that the kumbaya 2 lived longer than the non-kumaya 2. Okay, how much longer? 5 years? That'd be nice. Or just 5 seconds? That'd be useless.

A study of 86 patients, all of whom suffered from disease T and received the same standard medical treatment, divided the patients into 2 equal groups. One group’s members all attended weekly support group meetings, but no one from the other group attended support group meetings. After 10 years, 41 patients from each group had died. Clearly, support group meetings do not help patients with disease T live longer.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author concludes that support group meetings do not help patients with disease T live longer. This conclusion is based on a study that divided patients with disease T into a group that attended support group meetings and a group that did not attend such meetings. After 10 years, an equal percent of patients from each group had died.

Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that the group that attended support group meetings did not, on average, live longer than the group that did not attend such group meetings.

A
Of the 4 patients who survived more than 10 years, the 2 who had attended weekly support group meetings lived longer than the 2 who had not.
This doesn’t show that the group that attended support meetings lived longer, on average, than the other group. We have no reason to think that the people who attended support meetings who died within 10 years lived longer than the people who died in the other group.
B
For many diseases, attending weekly support group meetings is part of the standard medical treatment.
Whether support meetings are standard doesn’t reveal anything about whether they are or are not effective in helping people live longer.
C
The members of the group that attended weekly support group meetings lived 2 years longer, on average, than the members of the other group.
This constitutes evidence suggesting that the support group meetings might have helped people live longer. Even if an equal percent of people died in each group, the ones who attended the support meetings might have survived longer within that 10-year period.
D
Some physicians have argued that attending weekly support group meetings gives patients less faith in the standard treatment for disease T.
It’s not clear how a decrease in faith in a treatment could affect the effectiveness of the treatment. In addition, (D) simply says some physicians have argued this; this doesn’t suggest those physicians are right.
E
Everyone in the group whose members attended weekly support group meetings reported after 1 year that those meetings had helped them to cope with the disease.
It’s not clear whether these reports indicate that the meetings actually helped patients cope with the disease. In any case, this answer doesn’t suggest that better ability to cope increases one’s lifespan.

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LSAT PrepTest 126 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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