V21-25

Official Solution:


Financial Analyst: Healthcare professionals, such as doctors, nurses, and pharmacists, rarely succeed when they manage financial projects. In fact, the average healthcare professional is less skilled at managing financial projects than the average management professional who does not work in a healthcare field. Successful management of financial projects requires strong quantitative skills. Therefore, the average management professional has stronger quantitative skills than the average healthcare professional.

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


A. The education of an average healthcare professional includes about as many classes focused on quantitative skills as that of an average management professional.
B. Unlike the education of an average healthcare professional, that of an average management professional includes training in project management.
C. The average management professional has completed a higher level of mathematics than the average healthcare professional.
D. Project managers generally have more free time to dedicate to financial projects than most doctors.
E. Doctors, nurses, and pharmacists must use quantitative skills on a daily basis in order to be successful at their jobs.


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 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.


Answer: B