Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Medium

PT3 S2 Q17 Explanation

A society’s infant mortality rate

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Logical Reasoning question.

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Stimulus

A society’s infant mortality rate is an accepted indicator of that society’s general health status. Even though in some localities in the United States the rate is higher than in many developing countries, in the United States overall the rate has been steadily declining. This decline does not necessarily indicate, however, that average, healthier at birth than they were in the past.

What this question is testing

Strengthen

Conclusion

The author wants to argue that even though fewer babies are dying, this does not mean babies are healthier when they are born.

Evaluate

How could fewer babies die without babies being healthier at birth? If medicine has gotten better at saving sick babies after they are born. The babies are still being born unhealthy — we just have better technology to keep them alive.

Imagine someone says, Not necessarily. Maybe heart attacks happen just as much, but emergency rooms have gotten better at treating them. The decline in deaths reflects better treatment, not better baseline health.

Goal

Find an answer pointing to better post-birth medical technology that saves unhealthy babies.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
17.

Which one of the following reasons, if true, most strongly supports the claim made above about the implications

Answer choices

  1. No Impact21% picked this

    The figure for infant mortality is compiled as an overall rate and thus masks deficiencies

    The fact that the overall rate masks local deficiencies does not address why the overall rate is falling. The conclusion is about whether the decline implies babies are born healthier, and how the rate is aggregated across localities does not speak to that. Local variation is a different issue.

  2. No Impact3% picked this

    Low birth weight is a contributing factor in more than half of the infant deaths

    This says low birth weight contributes to most infant deaths. Interesting, but it does not address whether low birth weight has become more or less common, and it does not tell us whether babies who used to die are now being saved by medical advances. It does not break the link between mortality decline and birth health.

  3. Correct73% picked this

    The United States has been developing and has achieved extremely sophisticated technology for saving premature and low-birth-weight babies, most of

    Why this is right

    This is the alternative explanation the author needs. If medical technology has gotten extremely sophisticated at saving premature and low-birth-weight babies, then the mortality decline can be entirely explained by post-birth treatment of unhealthy babies — without those babies being any healthier at birth. In fact, the same babies who would have died before are now surviving thanks to extended hospital care. That directly supports the author's claim that the decline does not imply better birth health.

    Skill tested: Strengthen · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

  4. No Impact3% picked this

    In eleven states of the United States, the infant mortality rate

    Eleven states having a one-year decline does not address the broader question of why the long-term U.S. rate is dropping or whether birth health has improved. It is a localized data point that says nothing about the underlying mechanism.

  5. Out of Scope0% picked this

    Babies who do not receive adequate attention from a caregiver fail to thrive and so

    This is about post-birth caregiving and weight gain, not about birth health or mortality. It does not explain why the mortality rate has declined and does not address whether babies are now being born healthier.

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