Q1 - The city's center for disease

[ebrickm2]

The correct answer is B, yet I don't necessarily see how it resolves the fact set.

Knowing that a significant proportion of the population succumbed to rabies two years ago tells me what relative to the 32 cases 2 years ago and that 25% of population was infected.


I know this should be an easy question, and I'm familiar with numerical and percentage flaws, but this one is just frustrating.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

We're asked to resolve an apparently conflicting set of facts.

1. the percentage of raccoons infected with rabies rises from 25% to 50%
2. the number of rabid raccoons confined during a 12-month period falls from 32 to 18.

How could it be the case that the percentage of raccoons is rising while the number of rabid raccoons caught fell so dramatically?

The only reasonable explanation is that we've captured less rabid raccoons because there are so few raccoons left.

Let's look at the following set of possible numbers

two years ago
=========
Raccoon population = 10,000
% Rabid = 25%
Total rabid raccoons = 2,500

Now
=========
Raccoon population = 2,000
% Rabid = 50%
Total rabid raccoons = 1,000

So if there are many less raccoons, that could explain why the number of rabid raccoons confined during a 12-month period declined - answer choice (B).

(A) is out of scope. "Other animals" cannot explain the statistics related to raccoons.
(B) resolves the apparent discrepancy for the reasons above.
(C) makes the matter worse, because now we have two diseases with similar symptoms. We should be finding even more diseased animals if this were the case.
(D) is irrelevant. What time of day we encounter does not tell us why we've found so few.
(E) doesn't tell us why. It just supports the notion that the phenomenon is happening, but doesn't tell us why!

I hope this helps! Let me know if you still need help with it...

[nflamel69]

Are we suppose to assume that those who succumbed to rabies dies?

[austindyoung]

Unfortunately, yes. "Succumbed" here, does mean "died." I've noticed in Explain a Result (Paradox) Q's that the stem uses the constructions "most helps" "does most to explain" quite often. Like a Most Strongly Supported Q- some are airtight- others require a little bit more wiggle room.

[erikwoodward10]

The conclusion talks about the "rabies epidemic"--not specifically the rabies epidemic in raccoons. With this in mind I chose A--because the conclusion does not specify raccoons, if the rabies rate in other animals went up enough the raccoon cases could still go down without affecting the overall trend.

Is A wrong because the discrepancy specifically deals with raccoons, although the conclusion isn't necessarily about raccoons?

In other words, on these resolve the paradox questions is the correct answer choice always limited to the scope of the discrepancy, or can it rectify the conclusion as well?

Thanks!

[zen]

To the above poster: it seems that in this problem we are supposed to resolve the discrepancy between two seemingly contradictory premises in order to strengthen or weaken the conclusion. That's a good question, I'd be interested in an answer.

Ok, here we go:

The Rabies epidemic is getting worse as 2 years ago 25 percent of local raccoons has rabies, while now, 50 percent of raccoons have rabies.
BUT two years ago we had 32 confirmed cases of rabid raccoons, while in the past year we've only had 18 cases!

Why is there this disparity? If more raccoons h ave rabies, it seems that there would be more confirmed cases of rabid raccoons, right!?

A) Out-of-Scope. We are not concerned with other animals, only with the discrepancy as related to raccoons.

C) Does not explain the discrepancy. So distemper has similar symptoms. Well, we must take it as a fact that 50 percent of raccoons DO have rabies and of the confirmed cases, they FOR SURE have rabies. There is no room for doubt about the disease they have; we have established these raccoons do in fact have rabies, we need to find out why the confirmed cases are less than expected. This does not help at all.

D) Irrelevant. You would think if raccoons are now less nocturnal there would be more confirmed cases as they would be easier to catch! This does not help explain the discrepancy at all!

E) This just provides evidence for the discrepancy; it does not explain it. Plus, we are talking about a specific area, not 'neighboring cities'.

Correct answer:

B) If many raccoons died due to rabies, the amount of raccoons with rabies would go up because now there are less raccoons so the percent of raccoons with it would be higher. If many raccoons died and there are less raccoons it makes sense we would have less confirmed cases because there are less raccoons! This explains it!

[FigueroaJ518]

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