Logical reasoning PrepTest 135 · Section 2 · Question 16

Incorrect. The argument doesn't equate these two concepts—in fact, in the conclusion, it says that you can change one without the other being affected, which couldn't happen if they were equated.

Incorrect. The conclusion is that University Hospital "could" decrease length of stay without affecting quality of care, so there's nothing that's treated as sufficient for the preservation of quality of care.

Incorrect. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Errors in Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
Edgewater and University hospitals have similar recovery rates for patients with similar illnesses, but Edgewater has a shorter length of stay, so University could kick patients out sooner without affecting quality.

Answer Anticipation:
This argument very much is based in a comparison between the two hospitals on a few different metrics. The conclusion is that they could be more similar based on a key similarity. As such, the argument is ignoring potential relevant differences between the two hospitals, and we can look for an answer that highlights that.

However, if we wanted to spend some extra time anticipating, we can likely figure out what that difference will generally address since there's more information in the stimulus. Here, the key similarity is that they have similar recovery rates for patients with "similar illnesses." Since the average length of stay is based on all patients with all illnesses, the argument is assuming that the illnesses these hospitals see are similar. If University Hospital, on the other hand, tends to have patients with more serious injuries that have a longer recovery period, they could have a longer average length of stay that couldn't be cut down without hurting quality of care.

No matter what level you reached in your anticipation, each answer should be quickly analyzed to see whether it features a relevant difference before digging in deeper!

Answer Explanation:
This answer raises the possibility of a key difference between the two hospitals—different illnesses. If the average patient at University has an illness with a longer recovery time, then that explains the difference in length of stay between the two hospitals, and quality of care might be affected by discharging people faster.

Key Takeaway:
Arguments that rely on two things being similar will generally be flawed because they assume that the two things are similar in all relevant ways—or, to rephrase it, because they assume that the two things aren't different in some relevant way.

Incorrect. The argument assumes that length of stay at University Hospital can be reduced to the same length as Edgewater Hospital, but it doesn't say that these stays can be eliminated, which is what would be required for the argument to assume that length isn't relevant to recovery rates.

Incorrect. Preferences are out of scope of the argument since quality of care isn't defined by what people think of the care.