Recent advances in surgical procedures have not decreased the average time for recovery from medical operations. Compared to ten years ago, the average post-operative hospital stay for patients undergoing surgery at the ten largest hospitals has actually increased by four days. Although mortality rates for operative procedures are much lower, patients are requiring more time to recover from these procedures. Clearly, the quality of operative and post-operative care is declining. The medical community should be very concerned about this grave problem.

All of the following, if true, weaken the argument above EXCEPT:

A)Operative and post-operative mortality rates are the most accurate indicators of quality of medical care.
B)Fewer than thirty percent of beds in the largest hospitals are occupied by patients recovering from surgery.
C)In the past ten years, innovations have allowed previously inoperable conditions to be treated successfully by major surgery.
D)Every year, many surgical procedures that previously required hospital stays are simplified enough that they can safely be performed in outpatient clinics.
E)Average surgical recovery time, measured by hospital stay plus time spent disabled from normal activities at home, has decreased by twelve percent in the last ten years.

Can someone explain his line of thinking approaching this question?
What I did, I was looking for the answers that would weaken the conclusion and deleted those.
still chose the wrong one.

Thanks
_________________

If my answer helped, dont forget KUDOS!


IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING

This question is of Weaken EXCEPT" type, i.e. our objective is to find the answer that
- strengthens the conclusion
- does not affect or is irrelevant to conclusion
- Out of scope answer

Conclusion: The quality of operative and post-operative care is declining and medical community should be concerned about it.
Reasoning: patients are requiring more time to recover from these procedures despite recent advancements in surgical procedures.

A)Operative and post-operative mortality rates are the most accurate indicators of quality of medical care.
-- This choice weakens author's claim and states that operative/post-operative [color=#ff0000]mortality rates are most accurate indicators, NOT the recovery time.
[/color]B)Fewer than thirty percent of beds in the largest hospitals are occupied by patients recovering from surgery.
-- This choice doesn't weaken or strengthen the conclusion, as the percentage of occupancy does not tell us anything about avg time of post surgical recovery. Author's reasoning is focused around decline in average time of recovery. Just the fact that "the occupancy is less than 30%" doesnt help us to evaluate whether the choice supports or weakens author's claim. The occupancy might have increased from 20% to 25% OR decreased from 25% to 10%. It can go either way and still be under 30%. Hence this is the correct for "Weaken EXCEPT" type answer.
C)In the past ten years, innovations have allowed previously inoperable conditions to be treated successfully by major surgery.
-- This weakens author's conclusion.
D)Every year, many surgical procedures that previously required hospital stays are simplified enough that they can safely be performed in outpatient clinics.
-- This weakens author's conclusion and implies that hospital stay would reduce as the surgeries can be performed in clinics.
E)Average surgical recovery time, measured by hospital stay plus time spent disabled from normal activities at home, has decreased by twelve percent in the last ten years.
-- This also clearly weakens author's conclusion
_________________

Thanks,
PraPon

VOTE: vote-best-gmat-practice-tests-excluding-gmatprep-144859.html
Tough RCs: Passage1 | Passage2 | Passage3 | Passage4 | Passage5 | Passage6 | Passage7

Im not convinced either and ill tell you why.
It always happens to me in questions where the reasoning you need to choose is out of scope or doesnt hurt the argument.
Thats exactly whats going on here.
Naturally I want to choose something that does not weaken but not something that doesnt mean anything at all.
_________________

If my answer helped, dont forget KUDOS!


IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING

A)Operative and post-operative mortality rates are the most accurate indicators of quality of medical care.
-- This choice weakens author's claim and states that operative/post-operative rates are most accurate indicators, NOT the recovery time.

so ?? our conclusion is

Clearly, the quality of operative and post-operative care is declining.

In weaken argument we have always something that explain another aspect related to the argument and ALWAYS out of scope in somehow. ALWAYS

here the only thing I read is .. rates are the most accurate indicators of quality of medical care, in which way ??


_________________

KUDOS is the good manner to help the entire community.

Its "weaken Except " i.e Strengthen ,Neutral ,or OFS required in correct answer -

Conclusion The quality of operative and post-operative care is declining.

Only-B)Fewer than thirty percent of beds in the largest hospitals are occupied by patients recovering from surgery.- Irrelevant to conclusion

Not a good question to waste time over.

regards
_________________

KUDOS is the good manner to help the entire community.

Just want to make a slight correction. (C) does weaken the conclusion. This is because if previously untreatable illnesses can be treated to major procedures then it is likely that these major procedures rather than a decline in the quality of post operative care is driving the increased post operative recovery time.

-Rajat
_________________

Free trial:Click here to start free trial (100+ free practice questions)
Free Session (May 25): : Learn how to master Sentence Correction. Click here to attend.