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Financial Analyst: Healthcare professionals, such as doctors, nurses, 02 Nov 2020, 21:06
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shanks2020
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Always good to see some healthy disagreement on these! :)

Let's start by being super-clear about the exact conclusion: "the average management professional has stronger quantitative skills than the average healthcare professional."

Great. How did the author arrive at that conclusion?
  • We know that "successful management of financial projects requires strong quantitative skills."
  • We are also told that "the average healthcare professional is less skilled at managing financial projects than the average management professional who does not work in a healthcare field". How do we explain this observation?
  • The conclusion offers one possible explanation, but maybe there is another reason why the management professionals are more skilled at managing financial projects.

We are asked to select a statement that, if true, casts the most serious doubt on the conclusion, so let's take a look at the choices:

(A) Just because healthcare professionals and management professionals take about the same number of quant classes, does not necessarily mean that both groups have comparable quant skills. Perhaps one group took classes that were, on average, more advanced, or perhaps, on average, one group did very well in those classes and the other group did not. Taking the same number of quant classes might help explain why two groups have comparable quant skills, but this information does not cast serious doubt on the conclusion. (A) can be eliminated.

(B) If management professionals are trained in project management but healthcare professionals are not, that probably explains why management professionals are better at managing projects, including financial projects. Choice (B) provides an alternative to the explanation stated in the conclusion, and, thus, casts serious doubt on the conclusion. Let's keep choice (B).

(C) If the average management professional has completed a higher level of mathematics than the average healthcare professional, we would expect management professionals to have stronger quantitative skills. This statement supports the conclusion rather than casting doubt on the conclusion, so (C) can be eliminated.

(D) Choice (D) might explain why project managers are better at managing financial projects than doctors, but this statement only gives us information about one type of professional within each group. We still do not know if management professionals, on average, have more free time to dedicate to financial projects than most healthcare professionals. This evidence is not strong enough to cast serious doubt on the conclusion, so (D) can be eliminated.

(E) Just because doctors, nurses, and pharmacists use quantitative skills on a daily basis does not necessarily mean that their quantitative skills are stronger than those of a management professional. We also don't know which group--healthcare professionals or management professionals--uses more quantitative skills on a daily basis. Furthermore, the group using those skills less often could still have stronger quantitative skills than the other group. Choice (E) does not cast serious doubt on the conclusion, so (E) can be eliminated.

Choice (B) is the best answer.

Hi GMATNinja

Option B does present an alternate reason, but not sure how it weakens the conclusion. Can you please explain.
The conclusion is - Avg. management professionals have better quant skills than avg. healthcare workers. My point is that even with this alternate reason, the conclusion is still same - be it through training - they still have better quant skills.
Ideally, there should be an option which weakens the conclusion or shows that avg. management professionals do not have better quant skills.
Kindly let me know where is my thought process going wrong!!!
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It would be great if we had an option that shows that average management professional do not have better quant skills, but sometimes (maybe most of the time) the folks writing these questions aren't going to be that nice to us. We can only reason our way through the answer choices we've been given, and (B) is the one that weakens the conclusion the most.

We don't know that training in project management would improve someone's quantitative skills. All we can say is that it probably makes someone a better project manager.

Being a better project manager could make the management professionals better at managing financial projects than the healthcare professionals. They wouldn't need stronger quantitative skills; the reason the management professionals manage these projects better could be because they're trained in project management.

This provides an alternative reason for the difference in the two groups' ability to manage financial projects. In turn, this would weaken the conclusion that the average management professional has stronger quantitative skills than the average healthcare professional. This is why (B) is the answer to this question.

I hope that helps!
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Financial Analyst: Healthcare professionals, such as doctors, nurses, 23 Nov 2021, 09:08
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GMATNinja
Always good to see some healthy disagreement on these! :)

Let's start by being super-clear about the exact conclusion: "the average management professional has stronger quantitative skills than the average healthcare professional."

Great. How did the author arrive at that conclusion?
  • We know that "successful management of financial projects requires strong quantitative skills."
  • We are also told that "the average healthcare professional is less skilled at managing financial projects than the average management professional who does not work in a healthcare field". How do we explain this observation?
  • The conclusion offers one possible explanation, but maybe there is another reason why the management professionals are more skilled at managing financial projects.

We are asked to select a statement that, if true, casts the most serious doubt on the conclusion, so let's take a look at the choices:

(A) Just because healthcare professionals and management professionals take about the same number of quant classes, does not necessarily mean that both groups have comparable quant skills. Perhaps one group took classes that were, on average, more advanced, or perhaps, on average, one group did very well in those classes and the other group did not. Taking the same number of quant classes might help explain why two groups have comparable quant skills, but this information does not cast serious doubt on the conclusion. (A) can be eliminated.

(B) If management professionals are trained in project management but healthcare professionals are not, that probably explains why management professionals are better at managing projects, including financial projects. Choice (B) provides an alternative to the explanation stated in the conclusion, and, thus, casts serious doubt on the conclusion. Let's keep choice (B).

(C) If the average management professional has completed a higher level of mathematics than the average healthcare professional, we would expect management professionals to have stronger quantitative skills. This statement supports the conclusion rather than casting doubt on the conclusion, so (C) can be eliminated.

(D) Choice (D) might explain why project managers are better at managing financial projects than doctors, but this statement only gives us information about one type of professional within each group. We still do not know if management professionals, on average, have more free time to dedicate to financial projects than most healthcare professionals. This evidence is not strong enough to cast serious doubt on the conclusion, so (D) can be eliminated.

(E) Just because doctors, nurses, and pharmacists use quantitative skills on a daily basis does not necessarily mean that their quantitative skills are stronger than those of a management professional. We also don't know which group--healthcare professionals or management professionals--uses more quantitative skills on a daily basis. Furthermore, the group using those skills less often could still have stronger quantitative skills than the other group. Choice (E) does not cast serious doubt on the conclusion, so (E) can be eliminated.

Choice (B) is the best answer.
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Hi, doesn't op b further strengthens the conclusion because more training= developing more skills in that sector?
can you please help me get a better understanding on this?
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Financial Analyst: Healthcare professionals, such as doctors, nurses, 04 Dec 2021, 19:44
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ak2121
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Always good to see some healthy disagreement on these! :)

Let's start by being super-clear about the exact conclusion: "the average management professional has stronger quantitative skills than the average healthcare professional."

Great. How did the author arrive at that conclusion?
  • We know that "successful management of financial projects requires strong quantitative skills."
  • We are also told that "the average healthcare professional is less skilled at managing financial projects than the average management professional who does not work in a healthcare field". How do we explain this observation?
  • The conclusion offers one possible explanation, but maybe there is another reason why the management professionals are more skilled at managing financial projects.

We are asked to select a statement that, if true, casts the most serious doubt on the conclusion, so let's take a look at the choices:

(A) Just because healthcare professionals and management professionals take about the same number of quant classes, does not necessarily mean that both groups have comparable quant skills. Perhaps one group took classes that were, on average, more advanced, or perhaps, on average, one group did very well in those classes and the other group did not. Taking the same number of quant classes might help explain why two groups have comparable quant skills, but this information does not cast serious doubt on the conclusion. (A) can be eliminated.

(B) If management professionals are trained in project management but healthcare professionals are not, that probably explains why management professionals are better at managing projects, including financial projects. Choice (B) provides an alternative to the explanation stated in the conclusion, and, thus, casts serious doubt on the conclusion. Let's keep choice (B).

(C) If the average management professional has completed a higher level of mathematics than the average healthcare professional, we would expect management professionals to have stronger quantitative skills. This statement supports the conclusion rather than casting doubt on the conclusion, so (C) can be eliminated.

(D) Choice (D) might explain why project managers are better at managing financial projects than doctors, but this statement only gives us information about one type of professional within each group. We still do not know if management professionals, on average, have more free time to dedicate to financial projects than most healthcare professionals. This evidence is not strong enough to cast serious doubt on the conclusion, so (D) can be eliminated.

(E) Just because doctors, nurses, and pharmacists use quantitative skills on a daily basis does not necessarily mean that their quantitative skills are stronger than those of a management professional. We also don't know which group--healthcare professionals or management professionals--uses more quantitative skills on a daily basis. Furthermore, the group using those skills less often could still have stronger quantitative skills than the other group. Choice (E) does not cast serious doubt on the conclusion, so (E) can be eliminated.

Choice (B) is the best answer.
Hi, doesn't op b further strengthens the conclusion because more training= developing more skills in that sector?
can you please help me get a better understanding on this?
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The best place to start with a CR question is to nail down the exact conclusion.

In this case, the conclusion is that "the average management professional has stronger quantitative skills than the average healthcare professional." How do they reach this conclusion?

Well, the passage also states that "the average healthcare professional is less skilled at managing financial projects than the average management professional." And furthermore, "successful management of financial projects requires strong quantitative skills." So if management professionals are better at managing financial projects, and this requires strong quantitative skills, then management professionals might have stronger quantitative skills.

Our job now is to cast doubt on this conclusion. Let's take a look at (B):

Quote:
Which of the following, if true, casts the most serious doubt on the conclusion drawn above?

(B) Unlike the education of an average healthcare professional, that of an average management professional includes training in project management.
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What impact does this have on the argument.

Well, the argument concludes that project managers are better at managing financial projects because they have better quantitative skills. But what if there were an alternative explanation? What if, in other words, there were a different reason that project managers are better at managing financial projects?

Well, that's exactly what (B) provides. Because if (B) is true, project managers could be better at managing financial projects simply because of this training, and NOT because they have better quantitative skills.

Notice that we don't know what exactly this project management training entails. Since we don't know if it includes quantitative skills, we definitely can't conclude that it would strengthen quantitative skills, so it doesn't support the argument. But because the training does provide an alternative explanation for why project managers would be better at managing financial projects, it weakens the idea that project managers must have better quantitative skills, and (B) is correct.

I hope that helps!
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Financial Analyst: Healthcare professionals, such as doctors, nurses, 07 Oct 2023, 22:01
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B) is the clear winner it weakens the core by saying MPs are better not just because of quant skills but because they have project management training as well.
as for confusion with D) its a trap - it uses wrong comparison project managers instead of management professionals.
Easy question if you see the trap in option d
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Financial Analyst: Healthcare professionals, such as doctors, nurses, 28 Dec 2024, 03:32
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(B) If management professionals are trained in project management but healthcare professionals are not, that probably explains why management professionals are better at managing projects, including financial projects. Choice (B) provides an alternative to the explanation stated in the conclusion, and, thus, casts serious doubt on the conclusion. Let's keep choice (B).
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You mentioned that "Choice (B) provides an alternative to the explanation stated in the conclusion", but actually the stem of the question doesn't explain anything, it just draws conclusion from observed facts.

Fact 1: the average healthcare professional is less skilled at managing financial projects than the average management professional who does not work in a healthcare field.
Fact 2: successful management of financial projects requires strong quantitative skills.

Conclusion: the average management professional has stronger quantitative skills than the average healthcare professional.

So, to weaken the conclusion, I think you have to either provide other "fact" which, if true, weaken the conclusion, or say, allows other conclusions; or weaken the "facts" which provided by the argument in the question. As an example, to provide a fact that indicate "successful management of financial projects doesn't necessarily require strong quantitative skills."

I'd say this question is another typical poor-quality question, because none of the choices provides other "fact" which cast doubts on the conclusion.
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Financial Analyst: Healthcare professionals, such as doctors, nurses, 06 Jan 2025, 12:26
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NPProb
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If management professionals are trained in project management but healthcare professionals are not, that probably explains why management professionals are better at managing projects, including financial projects. Choice (B) provides an alternative to the explanation stated in the conclusion, and, thus, casts serious doubt on the conclusion. Let's keep choice (B).

You mentioned that "Choice (B) provides an alternative to the explanation stated in the conclusion", but actually the stem of the question doesn't explain anything, it just draws conclusion from observed facts.

Fact 1: the average healthcare professional is less skilled at managing financial projects than the average management professional who does not work in a healthcare field.

Fact 2: successful management of financial projects requires strong quantitative skills.

Conclusion: the average management professional has stronger quantitative skills than the average healthcare professional.

So, to weaken the conclusion, I think you have to either provide other "fact" which, if true, weaken the conclusion, or say, allows other conclusions; or weaken the "facts" which provided by the argument in the question. As an example, to provide a fact that indicate "successful management of financial projects doesn't necessarily require strong quantitative skills."

I'd say this question is another typical poor-quality question, because none of the choices provides other "fact" which cast doubts on the conclusion.
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By drawing that conclusion, the author implies the following: management professionals are better at managing financial projects than healthcare professional because the management professionals have stronger quantitative skills. So the argument does contain an implied explanation.

In other words, the reason the author arrives at that conclusion is because he/she thinks that the conclusion explains the observed facts. (To be fair, that isn't something that's directly stated in the passage. Instead, it's something we have to infer.)

But then we get a NEW fact in choice (B): "The education of an average management professional includes training in project management, while the education of an average healthcare professional does not."

This new fact would explain the observed facts. That means there's no reason to draw the conclusion drawn by the author.

I hope that helps!
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Financial Analyst: Healthcare professionals, such as doctors, nurses, 06 Jan 2025, 14:05
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NPProb
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If management professionals are trained in project management but healthcare professionals are not, that probably explains why management professionals are better at managing projects, including financial projects. Choice (B) provides an alternative to the explanation stated in the conclusion, and, thus, casts serious doubt on the conclusion. Let's keep choice (B).

You mentioned that "Choice (B) provides an alternative to the explanation stated in the conclusion", but actually the stem of the question doesn't explain anything, it just draws conclusion from observed facts.

Fact 1: the average healthcare professional is less skilled at managing financial projects than the average management professional who does not work in a healthcare field.

Fact 2: successful management of financial projects requires strong quantitative skills.

Conclusion: the average management professional has stronger quantitative skills than the average healthcare professional.

So, to weaken the conclusion, I think you have to either provide other "fact" which, if true, weaken the conclusion, or say, allows other conclusions; or weaken the "facts" which provided by the argument in the question. As an example, to provide a fact that indicate "successful management of financial projects doesn't necessarily require strong quantitative skills."

I'd say this question is another typical poor-quality question, because none of the choices provides other "fact" which cast doubts on the conclusion.
By drawing that conclusion, the author implies the following: management professionals are better at managing financial projects than healthcare professional because the management professionals have stronger quantitative skills. So the argument does contain an implied explanation.

In other words, the reason the author arrives at that conclusion is because he/she thinks that the conclusion explains the observed facts. (To be fair, that isn't something that's directly stated in the passage. Instead, it's something we have to infer.)

But then we get a NEW fact in choice (B): "The education of an average management professional includes training in project management, while the education of an average healthcare professional does not."

This new fact would explain the observed facts. That means there's no reason to draw the conclusion drawn by the author.

I hope that helps!
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OMG, I made a very stupid mistake here, I was very sleepy the other day when I was on this question, I thought B was talking about "quantitative training" instead of "project management training", I misread the word, B is actually talking about exactly what I mentioned in my post:
Quote:
to provide a fact that indicate "successful management of financial projects doesn't necessarily require strong quantitative skills."
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B is definitely the right answer, there's no doubts here.
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Financial Analyst: Healthcare professionals, such as doctors, nurses, 15 Mar 2025, 21:46
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in this question only B works all other options are not relevant
B suggests that it may be the training in project management that is leading to better success of management professional in managing financial projects. so by doing this its weakening the reasoning given by the author about quantitative skills. so it weakens the conclusion that the average management professional has stronger quantitative skills than the average healthcare professional by saying that maybe its not about the quant skills but something else (that is better project management here) so we cannot say that one has better quant skills over other.

(A) The education of an average healthcare professional includes about as many classes focused on quantitative skills as that of an average management professional. - attending same or even more classes doesn't really mean that you will be better at applying the learnings or do better in real world.

C - The average management professional has completed a higher level of mathematics than the average healthcare professional. - weakens

D - Project managers generally have more free time to dedicate to financial projects than most doctors. - irrelevant, its talking about project managers in general, we do not know if our target ones are in this or not, and also free time doesn't mean better skilled.

E - Doctors, nurses, and pharmacists must use quantitative skills on a daily basis in order to be successful at their jobs. - again its a generalisation, what these guys should do we are not concerned with, it doesn't impact our conclusion in any way whatsoever
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Financial Analyst: Healthcare professionals, such as doctors, nurses, 18 Mar 2025, 09:57
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why is it not (A)- A shows that that's why our conclusion can be doubted
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Financial Analyst: Healthcare professionals, such as doctors, nurses, 02 Apr 2025, 01:17
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Your entire reasoning for (B) depends on the assumption that successful management of financial projects entail having a training in project management. But where is this given? The stem states that for successful management of these projects, what is required is having quant skills. So (B) is irrelevant to the conclusion which is inferred from the premise that the successful management depends on quant skills and because managers are able to better manage these projects, we can conclude these managers to have better quant skills

(B) depends on something which requires the stem to explicitly state before we choose it

the alternate cause can be accepted to be the reason for better management if we can infer from the stem that the successful management may have causes other than having better quant skills

nothing in the stem is given for us to infer that

hence (B) is not a strong option

the only one then remains 'better' is option (A)

DmitryFarber could you please help
napolean92728
MartyMurray
GMATNinja
Always good to see some healthy disagreement on these! :)

Let's start by being super-clear about the exact conclusion: "the average management professional has stronger quantitative skills than the average healthcare professional."

Great. How did the author arrive at that conclusion?
  • We know that "successful management of financial projects requires strong quantitative skills."
  • We are also told that "the average healthcare professional is less skilled at managing financial projects than the average management professional who does not work in a healthcare field". How do we explain this observation?
  • The conclusion offers one possible explanation, but maybe there is another reason why the management professionals are more skilled at managing financial projects.

We are asked to select a statement that, if true, casts the most serious doubt on the conclusion, so let's take a look at the choices:

(A) Just because healthcare professionals and management professionals take about the same number of quant classes, does not necessarily mean that both groups have comparable quant skills. Perhaps one group took classes that were, on average, more advanced, or perhaps, on average, one group did very well in those classes and the other group did not. Taking the same number of quant classes might help explain why two groups have comparable quant skills, but this information does not cast serious doubt on the conclusion. (A) can be eliminated.

(B) If management professionals are trained in project management but healthcare professionals are not, that probably explains why management professionals are better at managing projects, including financial projects. Choice (B) provides an alternative to the explanation stated in the conclusion, and, thus, casts serious doubt on the conclusion. Let's keep choice (B).

(C) If the average management professional has completed a higher level of mathematics than the average healthcare professional, we would expect management professionals to have stronger quantitative skills. This statement supports the conclusion rather than casting doubt on the conclusion, so (C) can be eliminated.

(D) Choice (D) might explain why project managers are better at managing financial projects than doctors, but this statement only gives us information about one type of professional within each group. We still do not know if management professionals, on average, have more free time to dedicate to financial projects than most healthcare professionals. This evidence is not strong enough to cast serious doubt on the conclusion, so (D) can be eliminated.

(E) Just because doctors, nurses, and pharmacists use quantitative skills on a daily basis does not necessarily mean that their quantitative skills are stronger than those of a management professional. We also don't know which group--healthcare professionals or management professionals--uses more quantitative skills on a daily basis. Furthermore, the group using those skills less often could still have stronger quantitative skills than the other group. Choice (E) does not cast serious doubt on the conclusion, so (E) can be eliminated.

Choice (B) is the best answer.
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Financial Analyst: Healthcare professionals, such as doctors, nurses, 02 Apr 2025, 01:50
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The conclusion of the argument is: "the average management professional has stronger quantitative skills than the average healthcare professional."
The core reasoning chain is:
  1. Healthcare professionals rarely succeed at managing financial projects
  2. Management professionals do better at financial projects
  3. Financial projects require strong quantitative skills
  4. Therefore, management professionals have stronger quantitative skills than healthcare professionals

Answer choice (B) points out that management professionals receive training in project management that healthcare professionals don't receive. This introduces an alternative explanation for why management professionals succeed at financial projects - not because they have better quantitative skills, but because they have specific project management training.
This directly breaks the logical connection between success in financial projects and quantitative skills. If project management training (rather than quantitative skills) is the key factor in financial project success, then we can't conclude anything about the relative quantitative skills of these two groups.

Let me explain why the other options don't cast as much doubt on the conclusion:
(A) Stating that both groups have similar quantitative education doesn't directly challenge the conclusion about actual skills, as education doesn't necessarily translate to skill level.
(C) This actually strengthens the conclusion by suggesting management professionals have more advanced mathematical training.
(D) This offers an alternative explanation (time availability) but doesn't directly address the quantitative skills comparison, which is the conclusion.
(E) While this suggests healthcare professionals have quantitative skills, it doesn't directly challenge the comparison between the two groups or break the reasoning chain of the argument.
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