September 2007 LSAT Section 3 Question 16

The average length of stay for patients at Edgewater Hospital is four days, compared to six days at University Hospit...

Tyler808 on August 4, 2022

How is C correct compared to D?

C states, "fails to take into account the possibility that patients at Edgewater Hospital tend to be for different illnesses than patients at University Hospital" When the prompt clearly quotes, "two hospitals are similar for patients with similar illnesses" which basically I thought to automatically rule it out because both hospitals have similar illnesses.

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Emil-Kunkin on August 5, 2022

Hi Tyler808,

The prompt does not tell us that the patients at the two hospitals have similar illnesses, but rather that for patients with the same illness, the recovery time is the same at the two hospitals. This does not rule out the possibility that hospital A has more patients who have lengthier illnesses.

Jazzy on September 11, 2023

Hi:

I was having the same confusion and I wanted to ask for a quick confirmation: is the answer saying that, for example, while the recovery rates at both hospitals for [Illness A] are similar, University Hospital may have more patients with illness more serious than A, and Edgewater have more patients with illness less serious than A, which result in the different average length of stay?

Emil-Kunkin on September 12, 2023

I think so! The two hospitals might be pretty similar in the quality of care, but if one is in an area next to a skydiving center and thus deals with more severe issues, its length of stay may be artificially inflated by the increased severity of the issues it deals with.