The mayor boasts that the average ambulance turnaround time, the time from summons to delivery of the patient, has been reduced this year for top-priority emergencies. ████ ██ █ ███████ ██████████████████ ████ ███████████████ ███ ████████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ██████ █████████ ████ ███████████ ████ ██ ███████ ███████ ██████ ███ ███████████████ ███ ████ ██████████████ ██████ ███ ████ ███ ███████ ████████ ██ █████ ███████ ███ ████████
The stimulus starts with the mayor's claim that the average ambulance turnaround time for top-priority emergencies has been reduced this year. The author then claims that this claim is a misrepresentation. She explains that the "reduction" wasn't because ambulances actually became more efficient in handling top priority emergencies, but because "top priority" has been redefined to exclude gunshot wounds and electrocutions, which were the most time-consuming cases.
Remember whose argument we're trying to strengthen: the author's, meaning we're trying to back up her case that the apparent reduction in average turnaround time is just a result of excluding gunshot wounds and electrocutions, which are the most time-consuming emergencies.
Whenever you see averages on the LSAT, it's important to look out for assumptions about what affects the average. The author claims that leaving out gunshot wounds and electrocutions alone has reduced the average turnaround time. In other words, she assumes that those situations were driving up the average in the past. At the very least, this assumes there were some occurrences of these situations that did drive up the average, and therefore that the city is not removing these situations from consideration because they never, or too rarely, occur. You could try to analyze this argument in more depth, but for this strengthening question, it's probably enough to identify this assumption and go to the answer choices, aware that some confirmation of this assumption would be a plausible way to strengthen the argument.
Which one of the following █████ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ██████████ ████ ██ ███ ███ ████████████ ██ ██████ ███████████ ████ ████████ ███ █████████ ██ ██████████ █████
The number of █████ ███████ ███ ███████ ████████ ████ █████
This doesn't affect the author's argument either way. The author's argument is about average turnaround time — i.e, the average time it takes to respond to any one top priority emergency — and not about the number of such emergencies.
In other words, to see how this answer choice affects the argument, it doesn't help us to know how many heart attacks and strokes there were — we would need to know something about the turnaround time for these emergencies. A decline in the number of heart attacks and strokes wouldn't bring down the average turnaround time unless the turnaround time for any given heart attack or stroke were also generally lower. Since this answer choice tells us nothing about the average turnaround time, it neither strengthens nor weakens the argument.
The mayor redefined ███ ████████ █████████ ██████████ ████ █████
This might be trying to "strengthen" the argument by suggesting that the mayor is a fan of redefining things in general. But that's close to an ad hominem argument, and doesn't strengthen the logic of the argument.
Experts disagree with ███ █████████ ██████████ ██ ███████████████ █████████████
Whether the mayor's redefinition of "top priority" is "right" or "wrong" according to experts isn't relevant. What we want to know is if that redefinition — whether or not the experts like it — is the actual reason for the apparent reduction in the average turnaround time for top priority emergencies.
Other cities include ███████ █████ █████ ██ █████ ████████ ██ ████████████ ████████████
What other cities include as "top priority" isn't relevant. We just want to know whether this particular mayor's redefinition of "top priority" — again, regardless of whether other people define "top priority" the same way — is the real reason for the apparent reduction in turnaround time, as the author claims.
One half of ███ ██ ████ ████████ ████████████ ███████████ ████ ███████ ██████ ███ █████████████ ██████
This is correct. Don't get thrown off by the apparent math involved with the "one half" here. Remember that we just need to know whether there were enough gunshot wounds and electrocutions last year that those emergencies brought up the average turnaround time, suggesting that excluding those emergencies would reduce the apparent turnaround time.
In theory, even a few gunshot wounds or electrocutions would be enough to do this, assuming that the makeup of the other "top priority" emergencies doesn't change much from year to year. But knowing that a very significant proportion — half — of last year's emergencies were these time-consuming gunshot wounds and electrocutions very effectively strengthens the author's argument that removing these situations from consideration is responsible for apparently reducing turnaround time.
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