LSAT 23 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q16

LR Question 16 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Some health officials are concerned about the current sustained…

QUESTION TYPE: Strengthen

CONCLUSION: There are more alcohol-related deaths because doctors are classifying more deaths as being alcohol-related.

REASONING: Alcoholism is now seen as a disease, so doctors are more likely to say it is the cause of death.

ANALYSIS: This is already a pretty good argument. We can strengthen it by showing that doctors are doing this quite often, or that doctors are able to do this.

___________

1. This is just a statistic about alcohol deaths. But we don’t know how often this happens, or how much earlier the deaths are reported. And even if we did know, I don’t know what this would prove.
2. That’s nice. Where was that, ancient Babylon? In the Roman Empire? And which moral failings…greed? Lust? This is a useless answer. We’re talking about alcohol, in the present.
3. CORRECT. This shows that doctors are now better able to correctly classify a death as having been caused by alcohol. In the past, they might have just said “liver failure”, without realizing what caused the problem.
4. This talks about how to treat alcoholism, when the patient is alive. The stimulus talked about how we classify deaths.
5. Who cares? The health officials are relying on statistics that are reported by physicians.
   You don’t have to be a doctor to interpret doctors’ data.

Recap: The question begins with “Some health officials are concerned about the current sustained”. It is a Strengthen question. Learn more about LSAT Strengthen questions in our guide to LSAT Logical Reasoning question types.