LSAT 135 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q16

LR Question 16 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: The average length of stay for patients at Edgewater …

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning

CONCLUSION: University Hospital could shorten its patients’ average hospital stay without reducing the quality of care.

REASONING: The average stay at Edgewater is shorter than University, and patients with similar illnesses recover at similar rates at the two hospitals.

ANALYSIS: The author reasons like this:

• Edgewater’s average stay is 4 days.
• University’s average stay is 6 days.
• Patients with similar illnesses recover equally well at both hospitals.
• Therefore, University could shorten its average stay without hurting quality.

But notice what they say in the comparison. The author tells us that patients with similar illnesses recover at similar rates.

That comparison might not be fair. What if the two hospitals treat different mixes of illnesses?

Suppose Edgewater mostly treats broken bones and appendicitis. University treats far more strokes, organ transplants, and severe trauma.

Patients with those more serious conditions naturally stay longer and bring the average up.

That wouldn’t mean University is inefficient or keeping patients unnecessarily long.

The argument assumes the two hospitals are comparable overall, but it never establishes that.

___________

1. The author doesn’t define quality of care as length of stay. They use similar recovery rates as evidence that quality would remain unchanged if stays were shortened.
2. This is a conditional logic flaw that isn’t happening here. There’s no conditional reasoning in the stimulus.
3. CORRECT. The argument only tells us that patients with similar illnesses recover similarly. It never tells us whether the two hospitals treat similar overall patient populations. Different case mixes could completely explain the different average lengths of stay.
4. The author doesn’t assume hospital stay is never relevant. They simply infer that University could shorten stays based on the comparison. The flaw is the comparison itself, not a universal claim about hospital stays.
5. Patient preferences are irrelevant. The argument is about whether shorter stays would affect the quality of care, not whether patients would like them.