October 2010 LSAT Section 3 Question 20

When people show signs of having a heart attack an electrocardiograph (EKG) is often used to diagnose their condition...

BK8 on May 10, 2020

Please explain

If this does not make sense, please point out the flaw in logic. What I am going to try to demonstrate is something I see done all the time in these explanation videos. I chose E. Why can we assume there is not a cardiologist who specializes in solely treating patients opposed to diagnosing them? He may be very skilled when it comes to treating diseases and heart problems, but he may be horrible at diagnosing them. Take Dennis Rodman for example. He was “highly skilled” and “very experienced” at basketball (a Hall of Famer), but he was horrible at shooting, and primarily only had a job because of his ability to rebound better than anyone else. (shooting being one aspect of the game – the same way reading reports is one aspect of cardiology – he is not representative of NBA players as a whole in that facet). If Dennis Rodman were to get into a 3 point shootout with the best high school shooter, there is a high probability that he would lose. What would that mean about the high schooler? Essentially nothing. Sure, he beat a hall of fame basketball player in a basketball related skill, but that certainly does not mean he is better at basketball. Dennis Rodman is not representative of NBA players when it comes to a specific skill-set within his profession. Dennis Rodman = cardiologist (player) in the study (competition). If his skillset and experience is unrepresentative of NBA Hall of Famers when it comes to shooting 3s (reading heart reports – one aspect of the job), then we could not come close to concluding that the high schooler (computer program) is better than NBA players (cardiologists) as a whole. Essentially, we could not establish that the high schooler is better at basketball than HOF Dennis Rodman, or should start in games over Dennis Rodman. (When Rodman was playing) I can understand why C is a correct answer, but you could just as easily make a strong/stronger case for E if you use the roundabout logic used in half of the 4-5 level problems.

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SamA on May 14, 2020

Hello @BK8,

I understand your argument regarding the difference between treatment and diagnosis. In the real world, you may have a valid concern regarding the type of experience that this cardiologist has. However, you are thinking a bit too far out of the box here. Try to stick to the information that is given to us in the stimulus. If the stimulus had set up a distinction between treatment and diagnosis, then I might agree with you. However, no such distinction is made. When we are told that the cardiologist is very experienced and highly skilled, we can safely assume that he is relatively good at making diagnoses, which is the issue at hand.

E actually strengthens the argument! This doctor is better than average, and he still lost to the computer. This really supports the superiority of the computer program over cardiologists in general.