Q18 - A study found that patients

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Therapists practicing new form are more effective than those practicing traditional.
Evidence: Patients referred to new form made more progress than those referred to traditional forms.

Answer Anticipation:
It's a classic correlation to causality argument. Just because there's a correlation between the new form and more progress doesn't mean that the new form CAUSES more progress. It also doesn't mean the even more narrow claim in the conclusion that the new form THERAPISTS are more effective than the traditional therapists (maybe the therapists are equally effective but the new form of therapy is what explains the increased success). It's very possible that the two groups being compared have a meaningful difference ... maybe people referred to the new form are those who are more open to experimental ideas and it's really that OPENNESS that is helping them make more progress with their therapy. Or maybe they are easier-to-fix cases than those who were referred to traditional therapy.

Correct Answer:
B

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) This answer is weird. Would it weaken the argument if both sets of therapists used the same techniques? Actually, no, it would strengthen. This would mean that the THERAPIST is more likely the difference maker, as the conclusion suggests, than the type of therapy.

(B) Yes! This is a very frequently used template I refer to as "Different Initial Reference Points". It's essentially just driving a wedge between two groups that the argument treated as comparable and giving us a reason to think that the two groups are NOT fair to compare. This answer weakens by making it seem like the REAL reason the new-form group made more progress is simply that their problems were more amenable to treatment.

(C) Red flag: presumes + extreme ("ANY"). Doesn't matter whether there is at least one therapist who knows both forms.

(D) Much like (A), this answer might actually strengthen in the sense that if the new-form therapists have a different personality attribute, then the conclusion might be right about saying that these therapists are more effective than others.

(E) Red flag: presumes + extreme ("has NO influence"). Personal rapport might have quite a bit of an influence. But that doesn't help us analyze whether new-form therapists are better than traditional therapists. Does one group have a better rapport than the other?

Takeaway/Pattern: This was a pretty garden variety correlation to causality argument with the classic "alternative explanation" answer choice. I would think that D would be tempting to people, if they thought the conclusion was saying that new THERAPY, rather than new THERAPISTS, are better than traditional.

#officialexplanation

[perng.yan]

I found (B) to be intuitively correct.. but then i noticed that in the argument, it says "made more progress with respest to their problems.."... that's why i assumed (B) was incorrect.. and chose (C) instead.. because a therapists could be one practicing in both traditional and new forms.. than the therapist of one would not be more effective than the other.

please help clarify. much appreciated!

[bbirdwell]

(C) cannot be correct because the argument doesn't say anything about training. It only mentions what form the therapists are actually practicing.

[perng.yan]

so my other question is why is (B) correct? how can one disregard the "with respect to their problems"?

[bbirdwell]

how can one disregard the "with respect to their problems"?

Don't disregard it. When the argument says "patients made more progress with respect to their problems..." this simply means "patients made more progress." Put even more simply this means "patients improved more."

Now understand the argument properly.
Premises:
Patients referred to new therapy made more progress than patients referred to regular therapy.

Conclusion:
New therapy is more effective.

This is a causal argument: new therapy ---> more progress.
But is this necessarily true? No! What if the patients referred to new therapy had much smaller problems than the patients referred to regular therapy?

Perhaps in that case, it's actually true that regular therapy is more effective, and so only the super simple, easy-to-fix cases get sent to the new therapy.

Do you see these possibilities?

That's essentially what (B) says: what if the patients referred to new therapy had problems that were easier to fix in the first place? This would cast some doubt on the reasoning used to conclude that the new therapy itself was more effective.

[interestedintacos]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy

[LSAT-Chang]

I found (E) quite tempting because personal rapport could have definitely accounted for the effectiveness, so if there was better personal rapport between the psychotherapist practicing traditional forms and the patient than between the psychotherapist practicing the newer form and the patient, then wouldn't it be a flaw in the argument to say that therapists practicing the new forms of therapy are more effective? The argument is ignoring a possible influence that can have on the outcome. Does this make sense?

[zainrizvi]

how can one disregard the "with respect to their problems"?

Don't disregard it. When the argument says "patients made more progress with respect to their problems..." this simply means "patients made more progress." Put even more simply this means "patients improved more."

Now understand the argument properly.
Premises:
Patients referred to new therapy made more progress than patients referred to regular therapy.

Conclusion:
New therapy is more effective.

This is a causal argument: new therapy ---> more progress.
But is this necessarily true? No! What if the patients referred to new therapy had much smaller problems than the patients referred to regular therapy?

Perhaps in that case, it's actually true that regular therapy is more effective, and so only the super simple, easy-to-fix cases get sent to the new therapy.

Do you see these possibilities?

That's essentially what (B) says: what if the patients referred to new therapy had problems that were easier to fix in the first place? This would cast some doubt on the reasoning used to conclude that the new therapy itself was more effective.

I think this conclusion is oversimplified. It's not that the therapy is more effective, it's that the authors practicing the new form of therapy are more effective.. there is a slight difference. This formed the basis for why I rejected (A). Even if they both use the same techniques for treatment, the therapists practicing the new form of therapy could just be genuinely better than the other people; hence, the conclusion would still stand, even though the efficacy of the new treatment could now be doubted.

Is there another way of looking at this? How can we eliminate (A)?

[goriano]

I found (E) quite tempting because personal rapport could have definitely accounted for the effectiveness, so if there was better personal rapport between the psychotherapist practicing traditional forms and the patient than between the psychotherapist practicing the newer form and the patient, then wouldn't it be a flaw in the argument to say that therapists practicing the new forms of therapy are more effective? The argument is ignoring a possible influence that can have on the outcome. Does this make sense?

I think the problem with (E) is that the argument never assumed that personal rapport between the therapist and patient has NO influence on efficacy. If we negate it and say that personal rapport does have SOME influence, the conclusion would still stand because

(1) We don't know which of the two types of therapists has the better personal rapport
(2) Even if we did assume that the traditional therapists had the better personal rapport, the author of the argument could simply respond "personal rapport doesn't outweigh the other traits that the experimental therapists possess that are more important in determining efficacy."

I think this conclusion is oversimplified. It's not that the therapy is more effective, it's that the authors practicing the new form of therapy are more effective.. there is a slight difference. This formed the basis for why I rejected (A). Even if they both use the same techniques for treatment, the therapists practicing the new form of therapy could just be genuinely better than the other people; hence, the conclusion would still stand, even though the efficacy of the new treatment could now be doubted.

Is there another way of looking at this? How can we eliminate (A)?

I used the same logic to eliminate (A). That is, if we had considered the possibility that both types of therapists were using the same techniques, then there must be some OTHER reason to account for why patients referred to the experimental therapists made more progress. This seems to support the conclusion that these experimental therapists might just be "inherently" more effective.

Would love feedback from the LSAT geeks on whether I explained this correctly!

[bbirdwell]

More or less.

(A) is tempting. One reason it's wrong is because it doesn't matter if the techniques are the same or different -- the form is different, regardless of technique. The conclusion still stands, therapists practicing the new form are a distinct group, and they are more effective.

(C) is wrong because it doesn't matter what training the therapists received -- it matters what they are practicing.

(D) is easily eliminated if we focus on the conclusion. It doesn't matter how many differences the two groups of therapists have -- the conclusion is that one group is more effective.

(E) is, again, irrelevant. Perhaps rapport has ALL the influence. It doesn't matter: the new-form therapists are more effective.

[samantha.b233]

I can see now how B is correct. The premise states patients under new therapy "made more progress with respect to their problems" but the conclusion states the new therapy is "more effective" period. That is a jump from "with respect to their problems" to "more effective" in general, which constitutes the invalid reasoning.

But I still have trouble understanding why E is incorrect, even after reading the quoted text below.

I think the problem with (E) is that the argument never assumed that personal rapport between the therapist and patient has NO influence on efficacy. If we negate it and say that personal rapport does have SOME influence, the conclusion would still stand because

(1) We don't know which of the two types of therapists has the better personal rapport
(2) Even if we did assume that the traditional therapists had the better personal rapport, the author of the argument could simply respond "personal rapport doesn't outweigh the other traits that the experimental therapists possess that are more important in determining efficacy."

An assumption of an argument can be neither necessary nor sufficient. Negating an assumption and seeing that the conclusion does not crumble as a result, only proves that such an assumption is not a necessary one. It does not prove that the argument did not make that assumption.

I do believe that with the assumption that personal rapport between therapist and patient has no influence, the original argument in the question stem seems stronger. Without this assumption, therefore, the original argument seems more unstable. One might raise the question, so what if it is the personal rapport between therapist and patient that made the patients feel better, instead of the therapy? Wouldn't that make your conclusion incorrect without invalidating the evidence you present?

That's why I chose E.