LSAT 126 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q5

LR Question 5 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Medical specialists report that patients with back muscle…

QUESTION TYPE: Paradox

ANALYSIS: People who receive drug therapy plus athletic therapy do no better than those who only receive the latter. Yet doctors say drug therapy is necessary. We have to explain the doctor’s opinion.

Think about why someone is prescribed a drug. Usually they’re not doing so well. It takes more treatment to get them to the same place as people who have lesser injuries.

___________

1. The fact that there are no other treatments doesn’t explain the mystery about the two treatments in question.
2. CORRECT. If physicians make accurate judgments, then this helps explain it. Only those who have worse problems and who need drugs will receive them. They only recover to the same extent as other patients because their problems were more severe.
3. That’s nice, but very vague. “Some” can be a very low number, and it doesn’t tell us much. Further, we don’t know whether it was the drugs or the therapy which helped the most.
4. Again, “some” is very vague. Further, we are not talking about the success of drug treatment alone. The stimulus is talking about “drugs + therapy.”
5. Other muscles can’t help prove anything about back injury. At best, they can let us know what hypotheses we should consider investigating.

Recap: The question begins with “Medical specialists report that patients with back muscle”. It is a Paradox question. Learn how to master LSAT Paradox questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.