This is a weakening question: Which one of the following, if true, is the most effective counter Pamela might make to Quincy’s argument.
In this stimulus we have a dialogue between Pamela and Quincy. Pamela argues that the long hours of residency staff doctors impairs their ability to make the best decisions in the later parts of their shift. That makes sense, I barely feel like I can make good decisions after eight hours of work, let alone 36 consecutive hours!
Quincy responds that records show that the trainees have generally made good medical decisions, so there is no reason to change the situation. We should note that Quincy’s argument relies on inductive reasoning; what is true in the past will be true in the future. Put more crudely: if ain’t broke, don’t fix it. We want to show that what worked before is now broken. Just because doctors were able to make good decisions previously doesn’t mean the situation is the same in the present; maybe the day-to-day work environment has changed in some way! We want an answer that will give us a reason why the long shifts could now be impairing the doctors, even if in the past the same regimen led to good decisions. Let’s see our options:
Answer Choice (A) This would strengthen Quincy’s position that a new model isn’t needed! All it adds is that one large part of resident staff work, their basic responsibilities, is the same as when records show them making good decisions.
Correct Answer Choice (B) If patients are more seriously ill on average than they were before, than that suggests Quincy old records aren’t representative of the current situation. This directly weakens Quincy’s inductive reasoning by demonstrating that the present is different from the past.
Answer Choice (C) This would support that we need the staff working long hours, without establishing whether there is a reason why they won’t make good decisions now even though they made good decisions previously.
Answer Choice (D) It could vary between specialties and still not be bad enough in any specialty to cause residents to make poor decisions.
Answer Choice (E) Do they need to be active for the whole 36 hours? Regardless, all this answer could do is strengthen Quincy’s argument by giving a reason why the 36 hour shifts are necessary, without addressing whether there will in fact be poor decisions due to the long hours.
This is an EXCEPT must be true question, since the stem asks: If the statements above are true, each of the following must also be true on the basis of them EXCEPT:
Our stimulus begins with a some statement, and informs us that some of the world’s most beautiful cats are Persian cats. It’s important to remember that just because some beautiful cats are Persian, that doesn’t mean all Persian cats are beautiful. What we do learn about all Persian cats however, is that they are pompous. I’m not quite sure what it means for a cat to be pompous (I’m picturing a cat turning up its nose at dry food), but we also learn that pompous cats are invariably irritating, which means that pompous cats are always irritating. Because this is an EXCEPT must be true question, we know we are going to get four answers that are guaranteed to be true from this cat info, and that the correct answer will be the one answer which could be false. Let’s see what cat inferences our answer choices make:
Answer Choice (A) If all Persian cats are irritating, and some of the most beautiful cats are Persian, then it must be true that some of the most beautiful cats are irritating.
Answer Choice (B) Same as A, this is guaranteed
Answer Choice (C) All Persian cats are Irritating means that Persian → Irritating. C is just the contrapositive of this conditional, and therefore must be true.
Answer Choice (D) If all Persian cats are pompous, and some of the most beautiful cats are Persian, then it must be true that some of the most beautiful cats are pompous.
Correct Answer Choice (E) This could be false! For all we know all cats that are both irritating and beautiful are Persian.
This is a Necessary Assumption question because it is asking us for an answer which the argument in the stimulus depends on. This is a classic NA question stem that we want to become very familiar with and confident in easily and confidently ID’ing.
The stimulus is not particularly confusing in how it is written, but it does get into some concepts which can be a challenge.
In 1980, our Country had a higher GDP than Europe by $5,000. Great. Ten years later, that gap had grown to $6,000. At this point, we might anticipate a lot of ways this argument could go wrong. Because this is a comparative relationship between Country A and Europe, we want to recognize some of the common mistakes made with this sort of relationship. Because our points of comparison here are themselves able to change, we can’t say anything about the absolute values of either country’s per capita GDP. It might appear that Country A is wealthier than it was 10 years ago, but at this point in the argument, we can’t say this for sure. Perhaps Country A is exactly the same and Europe is $1000 poorer. Or perhaps both are poorer. Maybe Europe is $3000 poorer and Country A is merely $2000 poorer. This would give us the same change in comparative value. Because we can’t establish either country’s actual GDP to a firm number, both economic blocs could have moved in either direction on the GDP spectrum. While the argument won’t necessarily develop in a way that utilizes this, it is highly probable that it will and we should learn to recognize the nuances of this sort of relationship.
We now see the payoff in the reference to “a rising per capita GDP.” As already discussed, the information provided can not establish a rising GDP. So this sets up a huge gap in this argument. We can accept as a premise that rising GDP indicates rising standard of living, just not that a rising GDP has necessarily occurred.
The conclusion is in the second part of the final sentence: “the average standard of living in Country A must have risen . . . .”
Given the analysis here, we are probably expecting an answer which will somehow address the identified gap. There may be a lot of clever ways to do this, though, so we should evaluate each answer closely to see if it works.
Answer Choice (A) No. We don’t care about increases in population. Nothing concerning the population size needs to be true. Per capita GDP is totally unrelated to population size. Population is how many people there are. Per capita GDP is, basically, how much money those people make, on average. It can rise and fall totally independent of population. This is a popular wrong answer choice, though. If you chose this, it may be worth brushing up on some basic economic terminologies. The LSAT uses these sorts of subjects a lot, and having a basic familiarity is quite helpful on questions like this one.
Answer Choice (B) This might actually hurt this argument because it indicates to us that the stats about Europe are more flexible than this argument seems to presume. If Europe’s standard of living fell, this indicates its GDP may have fallen as well, which could explain the increase in the larger GDP gap without the need for Country A’s GDP to have risen. More to the point, though, is just that the two numbers are completely independent of one another. All we know is the difference between them. Either can rise, fall, or stay the same so long as the other moves appropriately to match it.
Answer Choice (C) This doesn’t have to be true. Europe is a big, dynamic economic bloc so it wouldn’t be surprising if this were true. But it just doesn’t matter. We’re saying Country A has had a higher GDP than Europe as a whole. Whatever is going on within Europe to create its economic situation as a whole is none of our concern.
Correct Answer Choice (D) This looks good. This means that at least some of the $1,000 increase in relative GDP came from growth in Country A. Maybe the entire $1,000, or maybe just $1, but this ensures that the GDP of Country A did, in fact, grow from 1980 to 1990.
Let’s negate to test it out. If Europe’s per capita GDP was $60,000 in 1980 and dropped by $1,001, that means its per capita GDP is $58,999 in 1990. From these numbers, we can calculate Country A’s stats. We are +$5,000 on Europe in 1980, and +$6000 in 1990. Did our GDP grow? No. It would have gone from $65,000 in 1980 to $64,999 in 1990. $64,999 is less than $65,000. So this answer has eliminated a contingency that must not occur if our conclusion is to follow.
Answer Choice (E) No, this is similar to Answer Choice C. Europe is a big, dynamic economy and we are only addressing the average of the whole. Any individual member could totally be way bigger than Country A, so long as the average of all members is less.