PrepTest 156, Section 4, Question 10
While the population of city X is approximately(32 more words not shown)
Each of the following, if(20 more words not shown)
- APreventive health programs(10 more words not shown)
- BThe hospitals in(12 more words not shown)
- CThe drinking water(18 more words not shown)
- DThe hospitals in(18 more words not shown)
- EThe lifestyle in(12 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A smaller city should have fewer patients, other things being equal. But city X has even fewer than that comparison would suggest.
Imagine X has 1,000 residents and Y has 2,000. If the same percentage of residents were hospital patients, X would have half as many patients as Y. Instead, it has only a quarter as many. So the difference isn't just the size of the cities; a smaller share of X's residents are patients in hospitals.
My first guess is that the populations differ in health. Maybe X has more young, healthy people while Y has more older residents. Or perhaps the residents differ in diet or exercise. Those are possible explanations, not facts we've been given.
What we’re looking for
Watch the 'except' in the question. Four answers will help explain the difference; we want the one that doesn't. The useful answers might support that health prediction or identify some other reason fewer X residents are in hospitals.
Working the answers
- A
Preventive programs could keep health problems from developing or becoming serious enough to require hospitalization. More such programs in X therefore help explain why a smaller proportion of its residents would be hospital patients. This fits our guess that the populations might differ in health.
- B
Outpatient treatment means receiving care without being admitted for an inpatient stay. Someone can visit a hospital for treatment and then leave; it does not have to mean receiving care at home. If X's hospitals use this approach whenever possible, more people can be treated without remaining in the hospital. That helps explain the smaller patient count.
- C
Dangerous pollutants in Y's drinking water give us a possible source of more illness among Y's residents. With no comparable problem in X, the difference in water quality helps explain why Y would have more hospitalized residents relative to its population.
- DCorrect
We are counting residents of each city who are hospital patients, not patients located in each city's hospitals. A resident of X sent to a hospital in Y is still a resident of X. Moving that person's treatment across the city boundary doesn't move the person from the X-resident count to the Y-resident count.
This can look tempting if we picture beds filling up in Y while emptying in X. But those are counts by hospital location, and they aren't the counts in the passage. Y's high-quality hospitals and the referrals don't explain why a smaller share of X's residents are hospitalized.
- E
A less stressful lifestyle could contribute to better health and fewer problems requiring hospitalization. The contrast between the cities therefore offers a reason for the difference in their residents' use of hospitals. It doesn't have to be the entire explanation to contribute to one.
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