LSAT 123 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q17

LR Question 17 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Hospital executive: At a recent conference on nonprofit…

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning

CONCLUSION: We ought to make client confidentiality protection our highest priority.

REASONING: Some computer experts said access to confidential data is the biggest threat hospitals and other large institutions face.

ANALYSIS: This is a rare question: the answer actually challenges the competence of the computer experts. This might seem like an ad hominem attack, but it’s not. Hospitals are complicated organizations, and it would take someone with hospital-specific knowledge to say what the largest threat was.

We have no evidence that the computer experts had any relevant hospital expertise. Relevant expertise is a valid concern in evaluating recommendations.

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1. This didn’t happen.
   Example of flaw: Fire is burning down my house. So to solve this problem, I should light the fire on fire. Fire is the solution to fire problems!
2. CORRECT. This matches. We don’t know that the computer experts have any particular knowledge of the threats faced by large organizations. It’s possible they only know about computer threats.
    
   If the computer experts are blind to bigger threats, then we can’t rely on their opinion without further evidence.
3. This didn’t happen.
   Example of flaw: There has been more computer hacking since the car was invented. So cars cause computer hacking.
4. This didn’t happen. Unrepresentative samples will usually be obvious.
   Example of flaw: Bob is a computer expert, and he is from Arkansas. So clearly, all computer experts are from Arkansas.
5. This is an overgeneralization flaw. This didn’t happen.
   Example of flaw: Large businesses need HR departments. So your small convenience store should have an HR department.