#4 - It is more desirable to have some form of socialized

[Julie777]

Hi!

According to your explanation, the tutor said the cause here is 'technologically superior' and the effect is 'lower infant mortality' but i still can't understand why.

What I thought is the reversed version of that.

The cause is 'lower infant mortality' and the effect is 'tech superior'.

And answer choice (A) suggests that the cause can be actually the effect of the other cause, which breaks the causal relationship between 'lower infant mortality' and 'tech superior.' So basically (A) is saying the cause is 'broader access' and the effect is 'tech superior.'

Am i right about my thought process?

[Julie777]

Hi!

According to your explanation, the cause here is 'technologically superior' and the effect is 'lower infant mortality' but i still can't understand why.

What I thought is the reversed version of that.

The cause is 'lower infant mortality' and the effect is 'tech superior'. (because of the premise indicator, since)

And answer choice (A) suggests that the cause can be actually the effect of the other cause, which breaks the causal relationship between 'lower infant mortality' and 'tech superior.' So basically (A) is saying the cause is 'broader access' and the effect is 'tech superior.'

Am i right about my thought process?

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Julie,

Yes, the superior technology is the cause and the effect is the lower infant mortality.

I think that you are confusing the premise indicator "since" with having to list the cause, but that's not how it works. The premise can give the "effect," and the conclusion can give the "cause."

This happens quite often in causal arguments.

For example,

These people have lung cancer. Therefore, they must smoke cigarettes.

In this example, smoking cigarettes is the proposed cause of the lung cancer, even though it appears in the conclusion. In other words, the reason that the argument concludes that they must smoke cigarettes is to explain the effect (having lung cancer). Of course, like most causal arguments, this is a flawed argument as there could be many other causes for lung cancer such as air pollution, etc..

In this question, the superior technology is the proposed cause for the lower infant mortality. In other words, it explains why there is a lower infant mortality. Once again, like most causal arguments, there could be other explanations, such as what appears in Answer A.

(In addition, it wouldn't really make sense that a lower infant mortality would cause the technology to be superior.)

[lsatchallenger]

Hello!

I see why A is correct -- the author claims that low infant mortality rate is due to (the tech superiority) socialized medicine but the low infant mortality rate could be due to something else entirely (an alternative cause) -- is this correct?

1) I had trouble while attempting this question, determining what the conclusion was: I thought the conclusion was the first sentence, and that "socialized medicine....to be technologically superior" is the subsidiary conclusion, as this supports the first statement in the stimulus. Which is the main conclusion and why? Was my reasoning correct?

2) I went about this question thinking it is a flaw, but trying to weaken the argument -- which category does this question actually fall under?

3) Other than the word "lower" I am not sure how else to know that this is FOR SURE a causal argument? I kinda just went about it thinking, okay, how do I weaken the aspect relating to tech superiority, as that is what the stem specifies to focus on.

THANK YOU!

[Jeff Wren]

Hi lsatchallenger,

First, if you haven't already done so, I'd recommend reading the earlier forum posts for this question, especially the Complete Question Explanation (Post #1) and Adam's earlier post (Post #9), as you may find them helpful.

They can be found here:

viewtopic.php?f=699&t=8867

To answer your questions:

1. This argument actually has two conclusions. The main conclusion is the first sentence, but the second half of the last sentence in the stimulus "socialized medicine seems to be technologically superior" is an intermediate conclusion. Importantly, the question here is asking you to specifically weaken the intermediate conclusion rather than the main conclusion, so your focus should be on answers that specifically cast doubt on that part of the argument.

2. This question would be (and is) classified as a Weaken question, although it is easy to mistake it for a flaw question due to the word "flaw" in the question stem. The key difference is that, for flaw questions, you're looking for an answer that describes the flaw already in the argument, so these answers are descriptive in nature, such as "the argument bases its conclusion on an unrepresentative sample" or "the argument mistakes correlation for causation." In a Weaken question, the answer will be an additional piece of information that, if true, would hurt the argument. Here, you're looking for an answer that would indicate a flaw/weakness in the argument rather than describing the flaw that is already in the argument, and Answer A is not describing a flaw in-and-of itself but showing how that fact would weaken the argument, specifically the intermediate conclusion.

As Adam discusses in his earlier post, the causal reasoning is implied rather than stated outright, but this is quite common in LSAT arguments, so you should practice recognizing implied causal arguments, as often the hardest part of solving questions that have causal reasoning is being able to spot the causal reasoning in the first place. One important point to remember is that causal reasoning shows up most often in Weaken and Strengthen questions (as well as Flaw questions to a lesser extent). Almost half (about 40-50%) of Weaken and Strengthen questions contain causal reasoning, so definitely double-check for it whenever doing those questions.