#10 - Air traffic controllers and nuclear power plant

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption. The correct answer choice is (A)

The author recommends that resident physicians should have the same restrictions on working exceptionally long hours as air traffic controllers, because both types of professionals are engaged in work of a life-or-death nature. Whenever an argument uses an analogy to state its conclusion, such an argument always depends on the assumption that the analogy is valid and provides reasonable grounds for its conclusion. What if the job of resident physicians requires that they work longer hours — for whatever reason — than air traffic controllers or nuclear power plant operators? Look for a Defender Assumption that precludes such possibility.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. If there were some aspect of residency training that required physicians to work exceptionally long hours, the author's analogy would not provide sufficient basis for her recommendation. This answer choice is essential to the conclusion of the argument and is therefore correct.

Answer choice (B): Even though this answer choice further explains why resident physicians might be restricted from working longer hours, the conclusion does not depend on it. Even if they had a less direct effect on the lives of others than air traffic controllers or nuclear power plant operators, the fact remains that all three occupations involve life-and-death situations that may require restrictions on the number of hours worked. Answer choice (B) may strengthen the argument but is not necessarily required by it.

Answer choice (C): At first, this is an extremely attractive answer. By establishing an inverse correlation between the number of hours worked and the quality of one's performance on the job, this answer choice justifies the idea of limiting exceptionally long hours for occupations involving life-and-death situations. In fact, if we added answer choice (C) to the premises in the stimulus, the conclusion would be proven as true. This, however, is not a Justify the Conclusion question! Our job in an Assumption question is not to prove the conclusion, but rather to find an answer choice that would disprove the conclusion if removed from it.

The proper question, therefore, is whether the absence of a strictly linear, inverse correlation between the number of hours worked and the quality of one's performance on the job would weaken the conclusion. It would not. What if the negative effects of exceptionally long hours are not evident until someone begins to work 70 or 80 hours a week? Obviously, the argument does not require a strictly linear correlation between the two variables — it only requires that performance is less satisfactory after the 80th hour worked in a given week. Whether the quality of one's performance diminishes gradually (as this answer choice would have you believe) or abruptly (as in our hypothetical) is irrelevant to the conclusion.

Answer choice (C) is sufficient to prove the conclusion, but not essential to it.

Answer choice (D): The argument is only about occupations involved in life-or-death situations. This answer choice is irrelevant and incorrect.

Answer choice (E): Whether physicians would like to complete their residency training without working long hours is completely irrelevant to the author's recommendation. Even if they all wanted to work long hours, she would still insist that their hours are restricted. This answer choice is incorrect.

[jrc3813]

I have a question regarding the explanation for C. I got the right answer for A, but I was curious if C really is a sufficient assumption as the explanation says. It certainly strengthens the conclusion because if you get worse at your job as you work more, then we wouldn't want physicians who deal with life or death to work long hours. But the argument wasn't really about the danger of working long hours per se. It was about applying a rule equally across two supposedly analogous jobs.

C strengthens the conclusion but it doesn't address the reasoning that led to the conclusion. Wouldn't a better justify answer be "if one job that involves life or death has certain restrictions, then all such jobs have the same restrictions"? Even if we were just trying to prove the conclusion with no regard to reasoning, C wouldn't actually prove it unless we assumed that we don't want physicians to do unsatisfactory work. Although that's obviously true in the real world, if we're loooking for a 100% true argument we can't just make those kind of assumptions I thought.

Thanks for any help. I find that it's helpful to think about sufficient assumptions even on neccessary assumption questions too for me.

[nicholaspavic]

Hi JRC,
Good question. And you are obviously starting to really master the LR. When you start playing with the stimulus to see if other types of questions could work, that is a great indicator that you are really starting to master the LSAT.

So to your questions, Answer option (C) is a sufficient but not an assumption upon which the argument depends. For that reason you are correct that "C strengthens the conclusion but it doesn't address the reasoning that led to the conclusion." As far as an alternative answer for a stimuli whose question stem was a Justify type, I agree with you that "if one job that involves life or death has certain restrictions, then all such jobs [should] have the same restrictions" would be a better answer in your hypotheitical question. But at the same time, Answer option (C) could also a legitimate answer in a Justify type question as well. So keep that in mind too.

Thansk for the great question.

[Etsevdos]

What would be the negation of C?

[Francis O'Rourke]

Hi Etsevdos,

The logical negation of this answer choice can be summed up as "Every additional hour one works in a week does not necessarily guarantee less satisfactory job performance."

[Blueballoon5%]

Hello! I have have questions. In deciding the right answer, I narrowed down to answer choice A, C, and E. My biggest struggle (I think) was trying to negate these answer choices with the Assumption Negation Technique.

1.) For answer choice A, I negated the sentence to this: "There are some indispensable aspect of residency training that requires resident physicians to work exceptionally long hours."

My first question: Did I negate this sentence correctly?
Second question: If I negated this question correctly, how does this attack the conclusion? Is it because of the "indispensable" (absolutely necessary) reasons why resident physicians must have long training hours? The reason I didn't pick this answer was because I missed this term ("indispensable") and thought to myself, "So what if there are other reasons? Air traffic controllers might have some reasons to have longer hours (such as more experience in the job), but the issue of safety is more important and thus these workers should have shorter hours." But, in reading this answer choice more carefully with the word "indispensable" in my mind, I think this answer choice is correct because the other "indispensable aspects" are more than just job experience; these other aspects are necessary and thus cannot be dismissed over the issue of safety.

2.) For answer choice C, I negated the sentence to this: "The more hours one works in a week, the not less satisfactorily one performs one's work."

My first question: Did I negate this sentence correctly?
Second question: What does this sentence mean? Is it saying that there is no inverse relationship? The phrase "not less" is a little confusing.
Third question: I am trying to understand the inverse relationship in the answer choice (not negated, but the actual answer choice). Is the answer key explanation (above) saying that the inverse relationship does not matter because we don't actually know when the performance will go down? As in, the performance of resident physicians may go down after 200 hours per week, and so the physicians with 80 hours per week can still perform well?
Fourth question: I crossed out this answer choice originally because of the term "satisfactorily." In my head, I thought the term satisfactorily was too broad. I was thinking that " less satisfactory" =/= "jeopardizing lives with exceptionally long hours." Could someone explain to me whether this way of thinking is right or wrong?

3.) For answer choice E, I negated the sentence to this: "No resident physicians would like to complete their residency training without working exceptionally long hours."

My first question: Did I negate this sentence correctly?
Second question: I picked this answer because I thought that the opinion of resident physicians was important.
To give an analogy, let's say that the school district of town X wants to reduce the working hours of teachers in order to save money. The teachers, however, object to the proposal by the school district because they want longer hours. Wouldn't the teacher's objection to the proposal have some effect on whether the proposal would pass?

Sorry for so many questions! I completely understand if you cannot answer them all! I would appreciate any help!

[Adam Tyson]

Breaking this down one step at a time for you, blueballoon!

1. Yes, you negated answer A perfectly! You are correct that the "indispensable" aspect of that answer is the big issue. If there is something indispensable about working those long hours, then the same time restrictions placed on those other folks should not apply to them as originally argued.

2. I don't think you negated this correctly. To negate a conditional claim, you don't just negate the necessary condition - you make the necessary condition unnecessary. For answer C, that would be something like "Working more hours in a week doesn't necessarily required less satisfactory performance of one's work." So, longer hours don't have to diminish your performance. Does that ruin the argument about resident physicians? Not at all, because while diminished performance isn't required, it is still possible, and in a life-or-death job like theirs, that might not be worth the risk. I hope that answers all the sub-questions about this answer choice!

3. Looks like you negated it perfectly - nice job! But who cares what they want? Does their opposition to the proposal wreck the argument in favor of the proposal, making the argument fall apart? Boy, I hope not, or else every time someone doesn't like what you say your argument will be considered as worthless!

The thing you want to see with the negation technique is that the correct answer, when negated, destroys the argument. Not just weakens it, not just gives us some more things to think about, but destroys it, either by directly contradicting it or by removing all support for it or by introducing some new consideration that completely invalidates it. That's what the negation of A does - it completely invalidates the argument by bringing up new evidence that shuts it down.

[Blueballoon5%]

Thank you so much Adam! This was super detailed and helpful!