LSAT 148 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q11

LR Question 11 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: A year ago several regional hospitals attempted to…

QUESTION TYPE: Strengthen

CONCLUSION: Staff are more careful now that they know they’re being monitored.

REASONING: Injuries are way down now that all staff errors are logged.

ANALYSIS: This argument makes a causation/correlation error. It’s possible that errors are down due to knowledge. But, the author misses an obvious possibility: logging of the errors has let the hospital analyze them and take action to reduce common sources of error.

We can strengthen the argument by showing an actual link between staff’s knowledge that they are being monitored and the reduction in errors.

___________

1. This weakens the argument. The staff members already knew they would be investigated if something went seriously wrong.
2. This weakens the argument by showing that some outside factor may have been responsible: injuries are going down across the region.
3. This doesn’t matter. Sure, the program could have been even more expansive. But, it remains true that the program is much more expansive than before.
4. CORRECT. This shows the correlation was likely a cause. It wasn’t the logging itself that started the change. It was the staff’s knowledge of logging. (Showing a close time link between two factors always helps strengthen causation, especially if a distinction is made between another factor which could have been the cause.)
5. So? Staff might still worry about making errors. What happens after the second error? The third? Ideally staff would want no errors at all.

Recap: The question begins with “A year ago several regional hospitals attempted”. It is a Strengthen question. To practice more Strengthen questions, have a look at the LSAT Questions by Type page.