QUESTION TEXT: As advances in medical research and technology…
QUESTION TYPE: Paradox
PARADOX: Life spans have increased, and we are healthier. Yet we have a higher rate of serious infections.
ANALYSIS: We need something that explains why infections are up even though health in general has improved. Answer E does this by showing that our health treatments only work because they expose people to infections. (e.g. chemotherapy)
Most people get this question wrong. It’s a very good question, because it tests your ability to spot detail. The stimulus says that the rate of infections has increased. An example of rate is “37 infections per thousand people”. Answer choice D is the most popular answer, but it says number of infections. An example of a number is “37”.
People confuse number and rate all the time. Take crime statistics. Cities tend to be safer than rural regions. New York city has a high number of murders, because millions of people live there. But the murder rate in NYC is actually quite low.
___________
- You must take “some” at its weakest on answer choices. This answer could mean that 0.00001% of doctors prescribe the wrong medicine. That doesn’t affect anything.
- This doesn’t explain anything about infections.
- This doesn’t explain why infections have increased, even though health is better.
- This is incredibly tempting. It is warranted to assume that population has increased – everyone knows this is true. So based on this answer, we can say that there is a higher number of serious infections.
But the stimulus is talking about rate, not number! Rate = amount of infections per capita. So the total population has nothing to do with the rate. - CORRECT. This shows that the treatments that improve our health also increase the infection rate.
Recap: The question begins with “As advances in medical research and technology”. It is a Paradox question. To practice more Paradox questions, have a look at the LSAT Questions by Type page.
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Josh says
I understand why E is correct; however, I do not understand completely why C is incorrect. C suggests that even though serious infections have increased, most are now curable, which would explain the discrepancy. The infections can be cured and that is why people are overall more healthy. Why do need to know why serious infections have increased, as long as we know why people are still healthy?
One could argue that the second half of the answer explains it, seeing as ‘many require hospitalization.’ But many is not most. It does not necessarily imply that overall health is therefore decreasing.
TutorLucas (LSAT Hacks) says
This is a paradox/resolve the discrepancy question, so we’re looking for an answer choice that explains both facts given to us in the stimulus. The stimulus tells us:
(1) overall health has improved
(2) there has been a steady and significant increase in the rate of serious infections
(C) accounts for (1) — if the vast majority of serious infections are now curable, that would suggest an overall improvement in health. But, it does not account for (2).
GT from DC says
Love the site! You are a saint.
I ruled out answer E, because it increased “the patient’s susceptibility to infection.” The prompt address “serious infections.”
There’s a big difference between tuberculosis and a sinus infection.
TutorLucas (LSAT Hacks) says
We’re looking for the answer choice that best helps to explain the apparent discrepancy between the between two facts we’ve been given. (E) indicates an increased susceptibility to infections in general, why would that rule out the possibility of an increase in the rate of serious infections? It’s certainly a possible explanation for the second fact in the stimulus.
We could only safely eliminate (E) if it said something like “modern treatments increase the patient’s susceptibility to mild infections”.
David says
It says “proportional increase in number” which is essentially a rate.
The problem is that the stimulus provides no evidence that the population size is increasing.
FounderGraeme Blake says
Good eye to detail, but that’s not what “proportional increase in number” means. Let’s take a population with 1000 people and a 1% rate of serious infections. That’s 10 infections.
Now let’s double the population. If there’s a directly proportional increase in numbers of infections, then there will be 10 more infections, for 20 serious infections total. That makes 20 infections, which is a serious infection rate of….1%. So it’s the same as before. A directly proportional increase in the number of serious infections will always lead to the same rate.
That’s the flaw. The fact that the argument didn’t mention an increase in population size is not really a flaw. The LSAT allows you to assume common knowledge. Everyone knows that the USA has grown in population over the past few decades. In fact, I’d be surprised if you can name a single country that has a lower population than it did in 1970. Population increase is a very, very warranted assumption. Even Russia has more people now than in 1970, and Russia had a large population drop when the USSR collapsed.
This is not a well known issue, because it’s rarely central to LSAT questions, but warranted assumptions are allowed. Those are assumptions that no reasonable person would disagree with.