The mayor boasts that the average ambulance turnaround time, the time

Question

The mayor boasts that the average ambulance turnaround time, the time from summons to delivery of the patient, has been reduced this year for top-priority emergencies. This is a serious misrepresentation. This “reduction” was produced simply by redefining “top priority.” Such emergencies used to include gunshot wounds and electrocutions, the most time-consuming cases. Now they are limited strictly to heart attacks and strokes.

Which one of the following would strengthen the author’s conclusion that it was the redefinition of “top priority” that produced the reduction in turnaround time?

(A) The number of heart attacks and strokes declined this year.
(B) The mayor redefined the city’s financial priorities this year.
(C) Experts disagree with the mayor’s definition of “top-priority emergency.”
(D) Other cities include gunshot wound cases in their category o top-priority emergencies.
(E) One half of all of last year’s top-priority emergencies were gunshot wounds and electrocution cases.

Source: LSAT

KarishmaB · Accepted Answer

Premises  :
Mayor - Avg ambulance turnaround time for top priority emergencies has been reduced.
The definition of top priority has been changed to remove gun shots and electrocutions - the time consuming cases.

Conclusion  : Mayor's claim is a misrepresentation.

We want to strengthen the conclusion.

(A) The number of heart attacks and strokes declined this year.  
Total number of incidents is immaterial. We are calculating "average" turnaround time. So Total turnaround time divided by the number of cases. Whether there were fewer cases this year than last year is irrelevant because we are comparing averages i.e. turnaround time per case.

(B) The mayor redefined the city’s financial priorities this year.  
Financial priorities is out of scope.

(C) Experts disagree with the mayor’s definition of “top-priority emergency.”  
The opinion of some has nothing to do with the conclusion. Note that generally only facts make conclusions stronger or weaker. Opinion of some does not.

(D) Other cities include gunshot wound cases in their category of top-priority emergencies.  
There is no right or wrong way to define top-priority emergencies. We know that it included gunshot wounds last year but the definition has now been changed to not include gun shot wounds. IT doesn't make the definition wrong, just different. This difference has led to the misrepresentation. 
How other cities define top-priority emergencies is irrelevant. We just care about last year vs this year in our city.

(E) One half of all of last year’s top-priority emergencies were gunshot wounds and electrocution cases.  
If a big part of last year's emergencies were gunshot wounds & elec and this year, they are not included, this could explain the reduction in the average turnaround time. If last year gunshot wounds and elec accounted for a very small part of top priority emergencies, not including them would not have made much difference at all. But since a big part of last year emergencies were gunshot wounds & elec, it does make sense that not including them will reduce the turnaround time without any actual difference on ground.

Hence (E) is correct.

Bunuel · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

This question asks you to strengthen the argument. If there are few, if any, gunshot or electrocution cases in the city, then the author's argument is irrelevant. On the other hand, if there is a significant number of these cases, then the author's argument is strong. Now certainly a situation in which one half of the emergency cases were the result of gunshot wounds or electrocution would be a significant number.  Hence the answer is (E).

neoreaves · Answer

IMO E

we are looking to strengthen conclusion ...even 5% strengthen would help ...in this case our conclusion is that "the redefinition of the term "top priorty" is the reason of the reduced time" --> to help with this conclusion we are provided with examples of heart attack, electrocution, etc

E) if "gunshot wounds and electrocution cases" were half of the cases. So there is a possibility that because we took these cases out, the overall time gets reduced because these were the cases that took the most time. Thus this somehow supports the conclusion better than others.

noboru · Answer

Why no A?
If the number of heart attacks and strokes declined this year; and these are actually the top priority cases, that somehow also strengthen the conclusion, does not it?
Thanks.

nifoui · Answer

I agree with E for the above explanations.

Noboru, I would say that A in not good because what the argument focuses on is the fact that the mayor  redefined  the top priorities.
To strenghten the argument we need to continue to focus on this by showing how the fact that the top priorities emergencies no longer include the shotgun wounds and electructions had an impact on the decreased average time.
With A, we only show that the heart attacks and strokes declined, but this doesn't help without knowing about the shotgun wounds and electructions.

Hope this helps...

can you confirm OA?

WillGetIt · Answer

(A) is clearly out, since the argument says "time reduction" for the "Top Priority Emergencies" in current year. As compared to the last year time consuming tasks like gunshots/ electro.. excluded in current year. So if these "time consuming tasks" occupy more than 50% of the jobs in last year than this certainly strengthen the conclusion that redefining (removing time consuming jobs) top priority does reduce the time. 
E is correct answer!!!!

90 Seconds, probably not too quick for a 700. Cheers!

semwal · Answer

CONCLUSION-    It is a serious misrepresentation that the average ambulance turnaround time has been reduced this year for top-priority emergencies. 
  premise -  1. This “reduction” was produced simply by redefining “top priority.”
 2. Such emergencies used to include gunshot wounds and electrocutions, the most time-consuming cases. Now they are limited strictly to heart attacks and strokes.

WE ARE LOOKING AT   AVERAGE   TURNAROUND TIME...we have to prove that by redefining top priority cases the AVERAGE turnaround time reduces.... therefore, by reduction of gunshot and wound cases, average turnaround time for top priority cases has reduced....................

(A) The number of heart attacks and strokes declined this year ...... turnaround time will not change.... wrong 
(B) The mayor redefined the city’s financial priorities this year .... irrelevant 
(C) Experts disagree with the mayor’s definition of “top-priority emergency.. ....experts can continue to disagree..... wrong  
(D) Other cities include gunshot wound cases in their category o top-priority emergencies. ......why bother about what OTHERS do..... 
(E) One half of all of last year’s top-priority emergencies were gunshot wounds and electrocution cases ..... yes this will affect the average... which WILL REDUCE.....CORRECT....  
_________________

Skywalker18 · Answer

The mayor boasts that the average ambulance turnaround time, the time from summons to delivery of the patient, has been reduced this year for top-priority emergencies. This is a serious misrepresentation. This “reduction” was produced simply by redefining “top priority.” Such emergencies used to include gunshot wounds and electrocutions, the most time-consuming cases. Now they are limited strictly to heart attacks and strokes.

Boil it down -- Definition change to exclude most time-consuming cases ---> reduction in average turn around time 
Pre-thinking -- These cases were significant enough in their occurrence to affect turn-around time (The most time-consuming cases did not very rarely -- i.e only 1-2 percent of total cases )

Which one of the following would strengthen the author’s conclusion that it was the redefinition of “top priority” that produced the reduction in turnaround time?

(A) The number of heart attacks and strokes declined this year. -- Irrelevant -- we are not bothered about the number of heart attacks and strokes for this year
(B) The mayor redefined the city’s financial priorities this year. -- Irrelevant
(C) Experts disagree with the mayor’s definition of “top-priority emergency.”-- Irrelevant
(D) Other cities include gunshot wound cases in their category o top-priority emergencies.-- Incorrect -- but this does not say that redefinition led to decrease in turn around time
(E) One half of all of last year’s top-priority emergencies were gunshot wounds and electrocution cases. -- Correct

Answer E

sunny91 · Answer

Hi Skywalker18,
I have a thought on option E. E states that one half of all of last year’s top-priority emergencies were gunshot wounds and electrocution cases. Now, we dont know anything about this year. We are comparing the data and making an assumption that the same trend of gunshot wounds and electrocution cases will be this year and sibce these are excluded, the timearound time decreases. But, what if this year, we have gunshot wounds and electrocution cases negligible. Then author's argument is weakened. 
Had the construction been One half of all of this year’s emergencies are gunshot wounds and electrocution cases make more sense to me. Pleas help me to understand where my understanding lacks.

Skywalker18 · Answer

Hi sunny91 , 
We are not bothered about the proportion of last year's top-priority emergencies (gunshot wounds and electrocution cases) for  this year  because those cases have already been excluded for the current year's average ambulance turnaround time because of the redefinition of “top priority”.

This is the concept of weighted average. 
--> Last year average turn around time was because of the contribution of gunshot wounds and electrocutions, the most time-consuming cases .
--> This year , the term top prority was redefined to exclude gunshot wounds and electrocutions, the most time-consuming cases .
--> Mayor's claim that average turn around time has been reduced this year , but the argument disputes that it was merely the redefinition of “top priority”.
--> So Last year, gunshot wounds and electrocutions were rare , so the turn around time for these cases will have little impact on total average .

Hope this helps!!

adkikani · Answer

nightblade354   generis   pikolo2510   GMATNinja   VeritasPrepKarishma

I am stumped between D/E.

In year 2018 (for e.g) Average ambulance turnaround time ie time from the place where incident occurred (e.g. gunshot)
to hospital has been reduced as per Mayor.

Author responds to this by saying:  This is a serious misrepresentation

On what basis does he make this claim: the reduction of time has no single definition. Earlier (say in year 2017) this time 
was used to denote emergencies as gunshot wounds and electrocutions. Now is 2018, reduction time refers to heart attacks and strokes

I need to strengthen author's claim and oppose Mayor's claim that there is actual reduction in timing for ambulance turnaround.

As per me, this weakens the claim of author. If cases of heart diseases are less, than 
Mayor's claim becomes stronger, not author's. Note that in present year, the 'priority'
has shifted from  gunshot wounds and electrocutions  to  heart attacks and strokes

When did Mayor redefine the priorities is irrelevant to this argument.

So what? Even if they disagree, this does not affect author's claim in any manner. Reject it.

Are we not looking for an answer choice that says other cities if include  heart attacks and strokes  in 'top
priority' emergencies, then author's claim is strengthened?

Why is underlined portion of (E) relevant to argument, when we need more cases pertaining to  heart attacks and strokes 
since we are talking about present and not past year.

nightblade354 · Answer

adkikani ,

(D) is way out of scope. We do not care about other cities one bit. We just care about our city. This is a classic trick on CR questions. They will provide information that seems good, but has no bearing on the information given and does not help our case (for example, the city across the river, the neighbor next door, the other class, ect.). Unless we are comparing, these are irrelevant to the argument.

Does this help?

adkikani · Answer

Hi  nightblade354

I apologize that I could not comprehend above quote. In a classic strengthen question, all I need to do 
is to increase my belief in author's claim, not PROVE it. Similar questions are covered  here  and  here  (see quote by  GMATNinja  and 
 generis  ) where in there is no explicit comparison made but the inference I made helped to increase my belief in author's claim.
What did I miss understanding here?

nightblade354 · Answer

You are correct about your statement. But how do know the cities are similar? What if one has 20000 hospitals and the other has 5? What if one is 400000 miles across and one is 4? These questions sink the possibility of comparison. For the criminologist question, the reason that the embezzlement one is eliminated is because the other option is far better. Though it is not recommended to go about eliminating answers this way, for the criminal one you have to assume that embezzlement and robbery are similar. I personally did not like the question because of that flaw.

GmatDisciple · Answer

Got this one wrong, but here's my error analysis and takeaways:
- As per Karishma's post above, "only facts make conclusions stronger or weaker. Opinion of some does not."
- Be precise with scope! Incorrectly answered C which is out of scope.

The mayor boasts that the average ambulance turnaround time, the time from summons to delivery of the patient, has been reduced this year for top-priority emergencies. This is a serious misrepresentation. This “reduction” was produced simply by redefining “top priority.” Such emergencies used to include gunshot wounds and electrocutions, the most time-consuming cases. Now they are limited strictly to heart attacks and strokes.

Which one of the following would strengthen the author’s conclusion that it was the redefinition of “top priority” that produced the reduction in turnaround time?

(A) The number of heart attacks and strokes declined this year.
 Out of scope: irrelevant
 (B) The mayor redefined the city’s financial priorities this year.
 Out of scope: irrelevant
 (C) Experts disagree with the mayor’s definition of “top-priority emergency.”
 Out of scope: I had incorrectly answered C which I now realize is out of scope.
 (D) Other cities include gunshot wound cases in their category o top-priority emergencies.
 Out of scope: Other cities actions immaterial
 (E) One half of all of last year’s top-priority emergencies were gunshot wounds and electrocution cases.
 Relevant and correct

garcmillan · Answer

Following Nightblade354 advise to push my CR skills beyond the limits, I'll post an extensive analysis of this question, explaining the initial thoughts on the stimulus and the reasons why I reject four options and choose one as the winner

. I beieve this is one of the best ways to improve in CR. Don't just do questions, but try to extract as much as possible from each of them. I think doing blind review help a lot in doing so (more about blind review here: https://gmatclub.com/forum/mod-nightbla%20...%2095316.html ) Here is the stimulus: The mayor boasts that the average ambulance turnaround time, the time from summons to delivery of the patient, has been reduced this year for top-priority emergencies. This is a serious misrepresentation. This “reduction” was produced simply by redefining “top priority.” Such emergencies used to include gunshot wounds and electrocutions, the most time-consuming cases. Now they are limited strictly to heart attacks and strokes. Initial thoughts: Ok this is a strenghten question, so let's try to find out a gap in the argument. Then the option could stregnthen the argument by filling one of these gaps. 1º Premise: Turnaround times has been reduced for top priority emergencies 2º Premise: Top prioroty emergencies used to include gunshot wounds and electrocution. Now they include heart attacks and strokes Conclusion: Reduction is due to a change of what top priority emergencies include and not due to reduction of time of the emergencies themselves Is the redefinition of top priorities enough to say that that's the reason why the times have decreased. Well, the argument says that they used to include the most-time consuming cases and now they are not included. So it is reasonable to state that. But what if heart attacks and strokes are now more time-consuming than gunshot wounds and electrocutions. mmm, it could be and we would need to eliminate that possibility to strengthen the argument. In addition, other time-consuming cases could have been included and the elmination of this possibility would strengthen the argument. Ok, enough. Let's read the choices with all these thoughts in mind. (A) The number of heart attacks and strokes declined this year. Ok. They declined. By how much? we don't know. Does this decline impact the average turnaround time of heart attacks and strokes. No. So this option doesn't help. Incorrect (B) The mayor redefined the city’s financial priorities this year. Financial priorities? This is not related in any way with average turnaround time. Incorrect (C) Experts disagree with the mayor’s definition of “top-priority emergency.” mm. They disagree with the mayor's definitions and they are experts. Do we know what experts base their definition of top priority emergencies? No, it's not said anywhere. We don't know if they consider time around time or severity of the cases to define top priority emergencies so this option doesn't help. Incorrect (D) Other cities include gunshot wound cases in their category of top-priority emergencies. We are trying to strengthen why the average time went down regardless of if gunshot wound cases removal is good or not. It doesn't address the main conclusion. Incorrect (E) One half of all of last year’s top-priority emergencies were gunshot wounds and electrocution cases. mmm. This one doesn't sound bad. We didn't know anything about the percentage that gunshot wounds and electrocution cases had. It could have been 1% of the total, in which case the removal wouldn't have impacted that much the average time, or it could be much more. Since we know that one half were the most time-consuming cases, then for sure average time has gone down because of the removal of these cases. Correct Option E

shameekv1989 · Answer

Is this an LSAT question or an OG question? Source is specified as LSAT though I found it in OG2020.

Does GMAC takes up LSAT question at times for GMAT?

unraveled · Answer

The mayor boasts that the average ambulance turnaround time, the time from summons to delivery of the patient, has been reduced this year for top-priority emergencies. This is a serious misrepresentation. This “reduction” was produced simply by redefining “top priority.” Such emergencies used to include gunshot wounds and electrocutions, the most time-consuming cases. Now they are limited strictly to heart attacks and strokes.

Which one of the following would strengthen the author’s conclusion that it was the redefinition of “top priority” that produced the reduction in turnaround time?

(A) The number of heart attacks and strokes declined this year. - WRONG. Number doesn't affect average.
(B) The mayor redefined the city’s financial priorities this year. - WRONG. Irrelevant.
(C) Experts disagree with the mayor’s definition of “top-priority emergency.” - WRONG. Irrelevant.
(D) Other cities include gunshot wound cases in their category o top-priority emergencies. - WRONG. Irrelevant.
(E) One half of all of last year’s top-priority emergencies were gunshot wounds and electrocution cases. - CORRECT. Almost suddenly decreasing the time taken for delivery as gunshot wounds and electrocution cases were not considered.

Answer E.

agrasan · Answer

Hi experts  KarishmaB   MartyMurray   DmitryFarber   IanStewart

I understand why E is correct but still a bit confused why option A is wrong?
My reasoning is: we know that heart-attacks and strokes take less time. If number of cases for them declined this year along with gunshot wounds+electrocutions, then it strengthens the conclusion. Am I making any stretch here?

Separately, could I reject this option by the logic of Quant that decrease in number won't explain the average change? only the change in mix (gunshots, strokes, etc.) will explain that?

The mayor boasts that the average ambulance turnaround time, the time

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The mayor boasts that the average ambulance turnaround time, the time

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