Several studies have shown that hospitals are not all equally

Definitely (B) , only this option talks about the " severity of illness " weakening/attacking the conclusion about the " quality of care provided by hospital staff "...

should it take more than 5 seconds to identify question type, negative words, and question stem?

Imo E
A very simple question , gives us a different reason for the finding.

-Patients are more likely to die in some hospitals than others
-Hospitals have about equal per-patient funding
-Mortality rate difference is because of differences in the quality of care

More people die at some people than others...it MUST BE because of the doctors' differing quality of care . Instead of thinking that way, maybe we should actually look more into the type of people that are going into these hospitals. Maybe some hospitals happen to be given more terminal cases than others. Maybe some hospitals that are in the inner-city typically get more cases of violence than those in rural communities. There are so many differences that we could attribute to the differing mortality rates. It seems that the patients would explain these differences; not the doctors.

(A) Yea okay this is decent. It shows that there are some hospitals that have personnel with more training or skills. However, does this necessarily equate to a difference in the quality of care? What if these advanced degrees were in philosophy and English? . The point is that having MORE advanced degrees does not equal MORE quality care. Even if it did, it would actually strengthen the argument rather than weaken it!

(B) gives us this alternate cause! What is it? It says that the average severity of illness varies from hospital to hospital. This means that some hospitals simply have more dire cases than other hospitals. A hospital that primarily deals with stuffy noses will not have more deaths than a hospital that primarily deals with ICU patients. (B) thus weakens the idea that it is the quality of care that leads to a difference in mortality rates by saying, "nope! It is actually the patients that lead to diverging mortality rates. We are all awesome! (okay I added that last part in)"

(C) This functions kind of like (A). It just gives us a random fact that doesn't seemingly have anything to do with debunking the quality of care conclusion. We don't know what affect the "average number of years that staff members stay on" has on the argument.

(D) This actually strengthens the argument just a bit. If we say that the same surgical procedures are being done then maybe the only differentiating factor IS actually the doctors/nurses performing the care. Thus maybe would COULD say that it is the doctors and nurses that provide that differing quality of care that leads to the differing mortality rates.

(E) This one is odd. It is kind of a premise de-booster because, while it shows that mortality rates DO vary, they don't "vary considerably." Now we don't really know how much they vary but none of this really matters. The point is that it says nothing about what actually affects the mortality rates. It just says that the mortality rates are different. Well okay then!

Answer B

GMATNinja generis ammuseeru nightblade354 KarishmaB pikolo2510

Is my reasoning of (A) valid?


Argument understanding:
Several studies have shown that all hospitals are not equally successful
Disproportionate patients die in few hospitals than in others.

Cause: Difference in quality of medical care provided by hospital staff
Effect: Variations in number deaths of people that are reported
Supporting premise: Same amount of patients care funded by hospitals.


A classic weaken q stem.



OK, so staff is better trained since they have advanced degrees. What will be the consequence of this?
Well , in ideal circumstances, staff should be able to provide better care to patients, enabling patients to recover earlier
and reduce mortality rates. So this option choice helps to further build up on fact that why the mortality rates
are different in few hospitals than others. Is my understanding valid?

So are you saying that Option A is providing an alternate reason for the difference in mortality rates and hence A should be the answer? This is incorrect

Having advanced degrees cannot cannot guarantee better care for patients. It can also mean that worst care or best care. So this option doesn't talk about the difference in mortality rates at all. We will have to assume about the mortality difference. Hence this option should be straight away eliminated

Hope this helps

adkikani, yes your understanding is correct and A strength this argument.

YES. This answer choice strengthens the argument.

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