#15 - People who have doctorates in the liberal arts are

[GLMDYP]

Hi Powerscore!
First thank you guys soooo much because after all, you have solved each and every one of my question!! Powerscore is definitely the best of the bests!
Second, here comes a quick question. For this question, I found answer choice (C) could be equally right. If the only people are those who focus on intellectual developments, then companies have enough reasons to reject liberal arts college people.
Am I right?
Thanks!

[Ron Gore]

Hi, GLMDYP!

Question 15 is a Justify the Conclusion question containing conditional reasoning. This understanding dominates the prephrase for the correct answer choice. Very often, this combination results in the correct answer providing a conditional relationship that ties together an existing conditional premise and the conclusion.

Here is the structure of the argument:

P: people with doctorates in the liberal arts are interested in improving their intellects
doctorates ----> improve intellect

P: companies rarely hire people who are not concerned with the financial gain that can be obtained by hard work in the business world

C: companies rarely hire people who have doctorates in the liberal arts

In this argument, the conclusion infers without support that if a person is interested in developing their intellect, then they are not interested in earning money, which provides the rationale for not hiring those with doctorates in the liberal arts.

Your prephrase is that the correct answer will provide that connection, i.e., that if you are interested in developing your intellect, then you are not interested in making money in the business world.

Answer choice (E) is correct because it expresses this idea. It says that ONLY people who are not concerned with making money in the business world are interested in improving their intellects. You would diagram this relationship:

improve intellect ----> NOT concerned with making money in business world

Answer choice (C) gives a reversal of the idea needed for to justify the conclusion, and it does so in a tricky way. It says that THE ONLY people not interested in making money in the business world are people who are interested in improving their intellects. By adding 'the" in front of only, the sentence shifts the necessary condition. This is diagrammed:

NOT concerned with making money in business world -----> improve intellect

Because it reverses the information needed, it is incorrect. It provides only a could be true situation, and does not justify the conclusion.

Hope that helps.

[David Boyle]

Hi Powerscore!
First thank you guys soooo much because after all, you have solved each and every one of my question!! Powerscore is definitely the best of the bests!
Second, here comes a quick question. For this question, I found answer choice (C) could be equally right. If the only people are those who focus on intellectual developments, then companies have enough reasons to reject liberal arts college people.
Am I right?
Thanks!

Hello GLMDYP,

No, you have a mistaken reversal there. In C, it says, basically, "people-who-don't-want-money arrow improve intellect". Whereas, E says, "improve intellect arrow people-who-don't-want-money", which is needed to make the chain "doctorate arrow improve intellect arrow people-who-don't-want-money", which, in the contrapositive, lets you reach the conclusion in the stimulus.
Or, common-sensing it, in the set of those who want to improve their intellects, maybe those with doctorates are not in the subset of those who don't want money, if you choose C. With choice E, the doctorates *must* be people who don't want money, which is what you need.

Hope that helps,
David

[lsat2016]

For some reason, i diagrammed it as
rarely hire -> interest in $ not
interest in $ -> rarely hire.
How can you tell which is the sufficient and which is the necessary assumption in a sentence that doesn’t have a conditional indicator?

[Dave Killoran]

Hi LSAT,

Thanks for the question! Two things:

1. I'm not sure I'm following your diagram. Is that supposed to be a statement and its contrapositive (which I think is the case but it's missing a "not" so it's unclear) or two separate statements?

2. There are several ways to determine which is sufficient and which is necessary when no indicators are present, but here are two relatively straightforward approaches:

A. Turn the sentence into an "if-then" form. This is often easier than it sounds, and is especially easier to do if you spend some time considering other examples (that you are know are correct) and then convert them to if-then.

B. Identify which element/condition tells you something else. For example in the second sentence, does knowing something is a "company" tell you anything? Yes, that it will rarely hire people who are not concerned with the financial gain that can be obtained by hard work in the business world.


As a side note, the Mechanistic Approach to this question reduces your contender answers to (C) and (E), and from there I'd focus on the actual conditionals present.

Thanks!

[sodomojo]

Answer choice (E) is correct because it expresses this idea. It says that ONLY people who are not concerned with making money in the business world are interested in improving their intellects. You would diagram this relationship:

improve intellect ----> NOT concerned with making money in business world

Answer choice (C) gives a reversal of the idea needed for to justify the conclusion, and it does so in a tricky way. It says that THE ONLY people not interested in making money in the business world are people who are interested in improving their intellects. By adding 'the" in front of only, the sentence shifts the necessary condition. This is diagrammed:

NOT concerned with making money in business world -----> improve intellect

Because it reverses the information needed, it is incorrect. It provides only a could be true situation, and does not justify the conclusion.

I'm having a tough time parsing out the difference in conditional language between (C) and (E).

With regards to (C), isn't "people who" a sufficient indicator. Why then would "people who are interested in improving their intellects" be the necessary condition?

I get what (C) and (E) should be - but how do you get there? (C) and (E) read the same to me outside of "interested" vs. "concerned".

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi, Sodomojo,

"People who" is a sufficient indicator, but it need not always introduce a sufficient condition.

In this case, the "only" before "people who" creates a syntax that modifies "people who" into a necessary condition. Consider the following examples:

1. People who eat cashews like nuts.
2. Only people who eat cashews like nuts.

These are diagrammed as follows:

1. Eat cashews Like nuts
2. Like nuts Eat cashews

This distinction is analogous to what happens in this question; the restrictive "only" turns this statement into:

• NOT interested in making money in business world Interested in improving intellect

Please follow up with further questions.

[hzhang01]

I am wondering can we really diagram the second sentence ("Companies, however, rarely hire people...")? I think "rarely" is not the same as "never", so the second sentence is not a conditional statement? If we can diagram, should it be like the following?

not concerned with financial gain --> companies rarely hire

Therefore, the question becomes:

Premise 1: doctorates in the liberal arts --> interested in intellect
Premies 2: not concerned with financial gain --> companies rarely hire
Conclusion: doctorate in the liberal arts --> companies rarely hire

So the logical gap is (to connect premise 1 and 2):

interested in intellect --> not concerned with financial gain (Answer choice E)

Could someone help me? Is this correct?

[Adam Tyson]

Perfect, hzhang01! That's exactly how to do it! You are correct that "rarely" is not a conditional indicator - it's more of a "formal logic" sort of term - but you can still include it as part of the condition itself: if you are not interested in financial gain, then you are rarely hired.

Well done! I presume that your excellent diagram and prephrase led you to the correct answer, answer E, which connected those two premises?

[ssnasir]

Hi there,

I diagrammed E as If you're concerned with making money NOT interested in improving intellect and the conrapositive to be interested in improving intellect NOT concerned with making money.

I was stumped by C because I diagrammed it as interested in making money in the business world NOT people who are interested in improving their intellects

I guess what I'm trying to understand is that when I make the sufficient condition positive and negate the necessary condition they both turned out the same. I know I am doing something wrong so I was just wondering if I could get some help. Thank you so much!