Often patients with ankle fractures that are stable, and thus do not

Thanks- I get it but isn't this an odd construction (have bolded to display meaning more clearly), i.e. many ankle injuries are revealed by the x-ray not to involve any fracture of the ankle. I think it should have been many ankle injuries revealed by the x-ray do not involve any fracture of the ankle
Many ankle injuries for which an initial x-ray is ordered are revealed by the x-ray not to involve any fracture of the ankle

Share any final thoughts please. Why is this construction so convoluted?

(B) lays out a clear sequence of events:

1) An ankle is injured
2) An initial x-ray is ordered
3) That x-ray reveals the injury not to involve an ankle fracture.

Is there another way to phrase this sequence of events? Sure -- there are almost unlimited ways to express information in written English.

Luckily, to correctly answer a CR question you don't need to assess whether an answer choice is written in the simplest possible way. Instead, just read the answer choice carefully and see whether it can be eliminated. Perhaps simplicity comes into play on SC, but it's not worth your time to worry about alternate phrasing of CR answer choices.

I hope that helps a bit!

Often patients with ankle fractures that are stable, and thus do not require surgery, are given follow-up x-rays because their orthopedists are concerned about possibly having misjudged the stability of the fracture. When a number of follow-up x-rays were reviewed, however, all the fractures that had initially been judged stable were found to have healed correctly. Therefore, it is a waste of money to order follow-up x-rays of ankle fractures initially judged stable.

P : stable ankle fractures -> follow-up x-rays
P : All judgemenets were correct
C : follow-up x-rays is waste of money.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument?

A. Doctors who are general practitioners rather than orthopedists are less likely than orthopedists to judge the stability of an ankle fracture correctly.
-> The argument is talking about orthopedists, not general practitioners.

B. Many ankle injuries for which an initial x-ray is ordered are revealed by the x-ray not to involve any fracture of the ankle.
-> Ordinarily, most cases in which x-ray are done will not show up any fracture of the ankle. However, this argument is only concentrating in the cases that fracture of the ankle virtually exists.

C. X-rays of patients of many different orthopedists working in several hospitals were reviewed.
-> Correct. While the argument has mentioned a strong term "all", decreasing viability of the conclusion, this information provides that sampling was not small and we can trust the conclusion.

D. The healing of ankle fractures that have been surgically repaired is always checked by means of a follow-up x-ray.
-> Irrelevant. The conclusion is stating that such a follow-up x-ray is not necessary. Moreover, the conclusion is not talking about ankle fractures that need surgical repair.

E. Orthopedists routinely order follow-up x-rays for fractures of bones other than ankle bones.
-> Irrelevant. The argument is only concerned with the fracture of ankle bones not other bones.

Hi KarishmaB,
Thanks for all you do
I am struggling with one thing here: In strengthening questions, we generally strengthen the logical leap from Premise to conclusion, but can we strengthen a premise?

Here, by saying that ''X-rays of patients of many different orthopedists working in several hospitals were reviewed'' are not we boosting the premise? Boosting by saying that, premise is correct?

Premise": all the fractures that had initially been judged stable were found to have healed correctly
Conclusion: it is a waste of money to order follow-up x-rays of ankle fracture initially judged stable.

Premises are facts. We cannot "strengthen" a premise. It is already established and needs no strengthening.
That said, when we have a study and we conclude something from its result, we do not need to take its result to be true in all cases. We can strengthen or weaken the result of the study.

For example, if we are given as a premise: Pigeons are vengeful.
Then that's it. Saying that a pigeon I tried to shoo away attacked me is not going to strengthen it. We have already established that they are vengeful.

On the other hand, if we are given that a study found that pigeons are vengeful, it doesn't mean that all pigeons are certainly vengeful. We could weaken the result of the study by claiming that the participating pigeons all belonged to an area with low resources or we can strengthen it by saying that the study observed pigeons in many different areas.

Similarly, here we have a study: "When a number of follow-up x-rays were reviewed, however, all the fractures that had initially been judged stable were found to have healed correctly."
Based on this observation, we are concluding something. I can strengthen or weaken the result of this observation.

Hi KarishmaB,

I appreciate the detailed explanation. I just came across a question that works on similar lines.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-magno-bl ... 69975.html

As you suggested: whenever a conclusion is drawn on the basis of a study/experiment, do we actually know whether the study/experiment is TRUE?
No, we do not know that. The author assumes it to to be TRUE. Hence, we can strengthen/weaken the argument by pointing out that study was perfect/flawed.

Thanks The above explanation makes much sense now.