Logical Reasoning

PT9 · S4 · Q14 A careful review of hospital fatalities

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A careful review of hospital fatalities due to anesthesia during the last 20 years indicates that the most significant safety improvements resulted from better training of anesthetists.

Conclusion

Increased use of oxygen/CO2 monitoring equipment in operating rooms will not significantly cut anesthesia fatalities.

Evidence

Over the last 20 years, the most significant safety improvements in anesthesia came from better training of anesthetists. Monitoring equipment was not available in most operating rooms during that period.

Evaluate

The author treats "training was the major past factor" as if it ruled out monitoring being a future factor. But two factors can both improve safety. Just because training drove past gains does not mean monitoring cannot drive future gains. The argument moves from "Factor X explains past results" to "Factor Y will not produce future results" — that does not follow.

Goal

The correct answer should describe this gap: showing one factor produced a result is not enough to show another factor will not also produce that result.

14.

A flaw in the argument is that

  1. Correct

    the evidence cited to show

    Why this is right

    This describes the flaw exactly. The "one factor" is anesthetist training, which the evidence shows led to past safety improvements. The "second factor" is monitoring equipment. The argument leaps from "training led to safety improvements" to "monitoring will not also lead to safety improvements." But evidence about one factor's effectiveness does not prove a different factor cannot also be effective. Two contributors to the same outcome can coexist. This is the gap.

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

    67% picked this

  2. the reasons given in support

    Circular Reasoning

    "Reasons given in support of the conclusion presuppose the truth of that conclusion" is the textbook definition of circular reasoning. This argument is not circular — its premises (review of past fatalities, monitoring's past unavailability) are independent of its conclusion (monitoring will not help in the future). The conclusion follows badly from the premises, but the premises do not assume the conclusion.

    2% picked this

  3. the evidence cited to show

    Causal Flaw

    This describes a different flaw — concluding that the absence of a factor caused a result, just because the factor was absent when the result occurred. The argument does not say monitoring's absence caused safety improvements. It says training (which was present) caused them, and uses monitoring's absence only to set up the inference that monitoring is not what drove gains. The flaw described here is not the flaw the argument actually commits.

    25% picked this

  4. the evidence cited in support

    Bad Description

    The argument's premises are not inconsistent with each other. The two key premises — that training drove past safety gains, and that monitoring was largely unavailable during that period — fit together coherently. There is no internal contradiction in the evidence. This answer mischaracterizes the argument.

    2% picked this

  5. the reason indicated for the

    Causal Flaw

    This describes a "common cause" or "third-factor" flaw — claiming that the evidence cited for "A caused B" actually better supports "A and B were both caused by C." The argument does not have this structure. The author does not need to defend a particular cause-and-effect pair against a third-cause alternative; the author is making a different (and faulty) inference about future effects of a different factor. This answer's flaw is not the argument's flaw.

    3% picked this

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