LSAT 142 – Section 2 – Question 20

LSAT 142 - Section 2 - Question 20

December 2014

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT142 S2 Q20
+LR
+Exp
Weaken +Weak
Sampling +Smpl
Math +Math
Value Judgment +ValJudg
A
1%
160
B
7%
158
C
66%
166
D
12%
160
E
14%
161
144
156
168
 +Harder 146.338 +SubsectionMedium

When people show signs of having a heart attack an electrocardiograph (EKG) is often used to diagnose their condition. In a study, a computer program for EKG diagnosis of heart attacks was pitted against a very experienced, highly skilled cardiologist. The program correctly diagnosed a significantly higher proportion of the cases that were later confirmed to be heart attacks than did the cardiologist. Interpreting EKG data, therefore, should be left to computer programs.

Summarize Argument
The author concludes that computers, rather than cardiologists, should interpret EKG data. This is because a computer outperformed a cardiologist on interpreting EKG data in a study.

Notable Assumptions
The author believes that a policy should be implemented based on an extremely limited study. She therefore assumes the sample size was adequate. The author also believes that since the computer program diagnosed a higher proportion of cases that turned out to be heart attacks, the program wasn’t making some error in other cases that would compromise its function. If the computer was identifying nearly every EKG reading as a heart attack, its value would be extremely limited.

A
Experts agreed that the cardiologist made few obvious mistakes in reading and interpreting the EKG data.
If the expert was doing an excellent job, then the computer program must’ve been doing fantastically well in order to be outperforming the expert. This supports the author’s argument.
B
The practice of medicine is as much an art as a science, and computer programs are not easily adapted to making subjective judgments.
The computer isn’t being asked to “practice medicine.” It’s being asked to read EKG data.
C
The cardiologist correctly diagnosed a significantly higher proportion of the cases in which no heart attack occurred than did the computer program.
The computer program was too liberal with its heart attack diagnoses. Thus, it may well be wrong in its diagnoses more often than the expert was.
D
In a considerable percentage of cases, EKG data alone are insufficient to enable either computer programs or cardiologists to make accurate diagnoses.
Let’s take those cases off the table. Now we have the computer versus the expert in all the other cases. We need to weaken the claim the computer would be better at diagnosing heart attacks in those cases.
E
The cardiologist in the study was unrepresentative of cardiologists in general with respect to skill and experience.
This is true: this cardiologist was an expert. We can imagine the average cardiologist would’ve performed even worse.

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LSAT PrepTest 142 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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