Q11 - A year ago several regional hospitals

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Strengthen

Stimulus Breakdown:
Purported cause: Knowing they were being watched
Effect: Hospital staff was more careful

Answer Anticipation:
Ah, a correlation/causation flaw in a Strengthen question. That old chestnut. Generally, the answer will:
1) Eliminate an alternative cause (maybe the recording of errors was a part of a broader effort, and one of the other actions caused the reported effect)
2) Show the cause and effect going together in another hospital group
3) Show the cause and effect both missing from another hospital group

To me, the first one is the most likely, and the second the least (since we know this was already done at several hospitals).

Correct answer:
(D)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) What impact did this policy have? When it was implemented, did it lower errors from before, or did it have little impact? Without knowing, we can't say the impact it has on this argument.

(B) Opposite. This weakens the argument by showing an example of the effect without the cause. When this happens, it suggests there was another factor leading to the effect.

(C) Out of scope. There was still an effect correlated with the change. Just because more could have been done doesn't help or undercut what actually happened.

(D) Bingo. This answer choice falls into another common Strengthen/Weaken pattern, which is discussing the timeline and showing that it makes sense (strengthen) or doesn't (weaken). This is a flavor of the second and third methods in the Anticipation area - there was no effect when there was no cause; the effect started when the cause started.

(E) Tempting! This answer is trying to get you to think it's ruling out an alternative cause—punishment. However, monitoring is a necessary part of punishment (you can't punish someone if you don't know they've done something wrong), so the two would be inherently related, and this answer doesn't strengthen the argument. Note that if the argument said that punishment was the cause, and this answer ruled out monitoring, that would be a correct answer. Take a second to think on that!

Takeaway/Pattern:
Always be on the lookout for correlation/causation arguments in Strengthen/Weaken questions, and know the common patterns in the correct answers.

#officialexplanation

[YudeS218]

I got this question right, however, in answer choice D, it says "....the records were being closely analyzed". where this comes from?

I only find phases like "systematically record" and "carefully monitored". I think there is a large gap.

I know it seems like only D stand a chance to strengthen the argument. However, I still think"being closely analyzed" it extremely unsuitable to form a right answer.

Anyone could help？Thanks in advance!

[LewenW112]

I got this question right, however, in answer choice D, it says "....the records were being closely analyzed". where this comes from?

I only find phases like "systematically record" and "carefully monitored". I think there is a large gap.

I know it seems like only D stand a chance to strengthen the argument. However, I still think"being closely analyzed" it extremely unsuitable to form a right answer.

Anyone could help？Thanks in advance!

I agree 100% that 'systematically record' and 'carefully monitored' do not appear to me as equivalents.