Q4 - It is more desirable

[ymcho2013]

Why is (A) a better answer than (B)?

More specifically, what does (B) mean when it states that "there is no necessary condition" between the two factors?

Thanks!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Great question... a bunch of things! Answer choice (B) conflates some terms.

"economic system of socialism" / "socialized medicine"

Also, the structure of the argument does not rely on a connection between the terms those ideas. If you read the argument as utilizing the claimed technological superiority of socialized medicine as evidence for the first claim, then maybe the argument does rely on assuming a connection between technological superiority and "desiring socialized medicine".

The argument first claims that socialized medicine is more broadly accessible than privatized medicine - this is simply taken as accepted truth. But then concludes later an explanation for something that could have been explained by the accessibility that we already accepted - best expressed in answer choice (A).

Let's look at the incorrect answer choices:

(B) suggests the argument assumed a connection that it does not. There is no assumed connection between the preference for socialized medicine and the last claim about technological superiority. In addition, we're not talking about the economic system of socialism.
(C) does not represent a flaw committed. This would only strengthen the argument.
(D) is true, but so what? This is a common trap answer to get you to say, "yeah... that happened." But it's not a flaw.
(E) is not true. The argument attempts to prove the desirability of socialized medicine, but it never assumes it to be the true in the first place.

Hope that helps!

[lhermary]

If anyone got this wrong, they may want to re-read the question stem again. I saw the word flaw and assumed I knew the rest.

[griffin.811]

Can someone attempt another explanation with this one, I'm not seeing the connection from the above responses.

I believe the core of the argument to be:

Soc. Med more broadly accessible than Private + Countries w/social meds have lower infant mortality rates than do private
--> So, Soc. Med more desirable.

I think I understand the issue now, we can't use the second premise (about infants) to support the conclusion because that premise is not necessarily independent of the first premise.

Is this correct?

[WaltGrace1983]

I'll give this one a try. We have a flaw question here.

Socialized Medicine = more broadly accessible than Private Sector
+
Countries with Socialized Medicine = lower infant mortality rates than countries with Private Sector medicine
→
More desirable to have Socialized Medicine than Private Sector Medicine

This is the whole argument. However, this is not really what we need to focus on. Why? Because the question stem talks more precisely about "a flaw in the argument about the technological superiority..." Thus, we can more easily analyze the argument like this:

Countries with Socialized Medicine = lower infant mortality rates than countries with Private Sector medicine
→
Socialized medicine seems to be technologically superior

Now that we have this down, the gap seems a little bit more obvious. Who is to say that a lower infant mortality rate means a more technologically superior system? Maybe it just so happens that babies in these countries are just born healthier and so no technology needs to be utilized to keep these babies alive. Maybe a country with Socialized Medicine uses primitive tools and medicines that, while not being as technological as the countries with Private Sector Medicine, are nonetheless more effective?

(A) gets at this gap beautifully. It basically says that the author failed to consider that the lower infant mortality rate might be due to something other than technology. In this case, the countries with Socialized Medicine might have a lower infant mortality rate simply because more people are able to get medicine and thus less babies are dying.

An example:
So let's say that country X has Socialized Medicine while country Y has Private Sector Medicine. The people who can afford Private Sector Medicine in country Y have a 0% infant mortality rate. Every baby born in a hospital lives! This is because the hospital has the latest technology. However, let's say that the people that can afford such care only constitute 97% of the nation. Within this 3% of the nation who cannot afford Private Sector Medicine, 200 babies die a year.

Only 100 babies die in country Y, the country with Socialized Medicine. While everyone is able to get to the doctor, the hospital only uses natural vitamins to keep babies alive. This is somewhat effective but babies still die.

This would be a situation that (A) conforms to. You can see why (A) is right if you think about it like this.

Incorrect Answers:

(B) is wrong because it is discussing the "economic system of socialism" as a whole when the argument is only talked about "socialized medicine." Some may say that the USA has "socialized medicine"...are we socialist? Nope.

(C) would actually strengthen the argument by purporting that infant mortality actually is a reliable indicator of quality. However, one must notice the gap between "technologically superior" and being "quality."

(D) We don't need a list.

(E) This is not a circular argument. The overall conclusion is about the desirability but this is not expressed in the premises. (E) would only be correct if the argument looked something like this: The US Supreme Court is corrupt and so it often will decide issues based on irrelevant facts. Thus, the U.S. Supreme Court is corrupt. See how it uses the premises to basically reaffirm the conclusion? Google "circular reasoning" and you are sure to find much better examples.

[mimimimi]

As someone above pointed out correctly, the question stem reads:

Which one of the following best indicates a flaw in the argument about the technological superiority of socialized medicine?

Therefore, we are actually asked to identify the flaw in the 2nd premise, which by itself is an independent argument! (Lower infant mortality rate -> technologically superior.)

[Mab6q]

Man I completely missed the reasoning on this one, which is why I was shocked to see that B was wrong.

I read that last of the stimulus like this.

Countries with socialized medicine have a lower infant mortality rate than do countries with private sector systems.

--> socialized medicine seems to be technologically superior.

I looked at that statement and thought to myself.... where in the world did tech superior come from?? The author assumes that infant mortality rates determine tech superiority.

Although that is true to some extent, the author seems to be saying that it is the tech superiority that led to the lower infant mortality rate, whereas I was looking at it from the angle of the the infant mortality determining that they were tech superior.

That's why B seemed so appealing to me. It tells us that we don't know that there's any connection between economic system of socialism and tech achievement. And although it says economic system and not lower infant mortality, i looked over that because an economic system of socialism encompasses a lower infant mortality rate. However, reading it more carefully, I can see how it's too broad as Walt suggests.

Looking at A, I thought it was wrong because it focused on the cause, which to me seemed irrelevant because I was looking at the effects - that infant mortality was causing tech superiority. However, it's the author is giving us an explanation as to why there is lower infant mortality rates, because of the tech. That is why A is correct. It gives us another an alternate cause.

Just thought I'd share that if anyone else had the same problem that I did.

[onguyen228]

The gist of the argument is: Socialized medicine (SM) seems to be technologically superior than privatized system (PS) because they have a lower infant mortality rate. Abstractly, a group is categorized as superior based on the phenomenon it caused.

Technologically superior
Socialized medicine (leads to)---> Lower infant mortality rate

Not technologically superior
Privatized system (leads to)---> not Lower infant mortality rate

This argument about technological superiority is dependent on the fact that with socialized medicine it leads to a lower infant mortality rate. To weaken this argument the cause & effect link must be broken. We also know from the premises that socialized medicine also leads to broad accessibility to patients and this is what the author overlooks; another cause for the phenomenon.

The infant mortality rate is lower with a broader patient pool, but that doesn't mean that the number of deaths went down.

For instance, say a country has the privatized health system with a 5% infant mortality rate (for the sake of simplicity percentages are used), hypothetically 5 out of every 100 infants die within a year. And lets an identical country has the socialized medicine system, and has a infant pool of 200. Out of the 200, 5 infants die that year; 5/200= 2.5% infant mortality rate. So you see lower infant rate does not mean less deaths, thus not technologically superior, just a larger infant pool. This is not the correct way to calculate IMR, but this way of thinking will still get you the correct answer and it is more analogous to other percentage/number problems on the LR.

Correct way
IMR= deaths/live births* 1000=
IMR (PS)= 5/ 95*1000= 52.63 deaths per 1000 infants
IMR (SM)= 5/195*1000= 25.64 deaths per 1000 infants
See how the number is lower just with a larger infant pool?

Thus,
Socialized medicine (leads to not)--///--> Lower infant mortality rate --///--> technologically superior

Socialized medicine ---> Larger patient pool ---> Lower infant mortality rate ---> not enough evidence to claim technological superiority

[ying_yingjj]

This is a horrible example of LSAT question.

B totally makes sense according to the structure of the stimulus. The second half of the argument does not look like a causal statement no matter what. It takes too many turns to get the technologically superior is the cause.

For A to be correct, the stimulus has to be re-phrased as: In addition, since countries with socialized medicine have a lower infant mortality rate than do countries with a system relying entirely on the private sector, it must be because SM has superior tech which private sector does not have.

Don't hang up too much on this question, modern LSAT questions are better than this.