Logical Reasoning: Paradox and Explain Questions Flashcards

A city installed brighter streetlights in its highest-crime neighborhoods, yet crime rates in those areas increased over the following year. Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain this apparent paradox?

Answer: The city simultaneously reduced its police patrol budget, leaving fewer officers to respond to crimes.

The simultaneous reduction in police patrols offsets the deterrent effect of better lighting, directly explaining why crime rose despite the improvement.

Studies show that people who take vitamin C supplements daily get colds just as frequently as those who take no supplements. Yet researchers also find that vitamin C supplement takers recover from colds significantly faster. Which of the following best reconciles these findings?

Answer: Vitamin C does not prevent infection but does accelerate the body's immune response once infection begins.

Vitamin C's role in accelerating recovery rather than preventing infection explains why frequency stays constant while recovery time decreases.

A furniture company switched from wood to composite materials to reduce costs, yet its total production costs increased in the first year. Which of the following most helps explain this paradox?

Answer: Workers required extensive retraining on new manufacturing techniques, creating downtime and training costs.

Retraining costs and production downtime in the transition year explain the short-term cost increase despite cheaper raw materials.

Hospital data shows that patients treated in the newest, most technologically advanced ward have higher mortality rates than patients in older wards. Which of the following most helps explain this discrepancy?

Answer: The newest ward is reserved for the most critically ill patients who have the highest baseline mortality risk.

Selection bias explains the paradox: the advanced ward treats higher-risk patients, so its elevated mortality reflects patient severity, not inferior care.

A software company allowed employees to work from home full-time, expecting productivity to rise due to fewer commutes and office distractions. Instead, individual productivity fell. Which of the following, if true, best explains this outcome?

Answer: Home environments contain distractions such as family members and household chores that impair focus.

Home distractions directly counteract the expected benefits of eliminating commutes, explaining the productivity decline.

A country enacted strict environmental laws to reduce air pollution, but average air quality measurements in the country worsened over the next decade. Which of the following most helps explain this paradox?

Answer: Air quality measurement technology became more sensitive during the decade, detecting previously undetected pollutants.

If measuring instruments became more sensitive, recorded pollution levels would increase even if actual pollution decreased, resolving the paradox without any real worsening.

A diet program reports that members who attend weekly group meetings lose less weight on average than members who diet independently without meetings. Yet the program strongly promotes its group meeting component as effective. Which of the following, if true, best reconciles this apparent contradiction?

Answer: Members who attend group meetings tend to be those who have failed at independent dieting multiple times and face greater challenges.

If group meeting attendees are disproportionately repeat failures with harder-to-address challenges, their lower average loss reflects the difficulty of their situation, not the inefficacy of meetings.