#7 - Economist: ChesChem, a chemical manufacturer located

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[dani23]

Hello,

I am completely lost on this question. I missed it on the actual LSAT exam this previous September and I missed it again as I am restudying my mistakes.

Thanks

[nicholaspavic]

Hi dani,

This is a necessary assumption type question. The stimulus sets up a numbers and percentages issue in which the test taker is asked to resolve exactly the circumstances under which ChesChem will move its operations to Tilsen. In identifying our conclusion which starts with "So if..." (the last sentence), we are going to try to determine how ChesChem could be stopped from moving to Tilsen. My prephrase focused on the phrasing about natural gas being twice the cost in Chester, so I was looking for something that was going to play with the Tilsen price of natural gas.

Answer Choice (B) fit the bill nicely by suggesting that the price in Tilsen would not go up too.

So what we do now, is apply our Assumption Negation Technique to (B) to see if that attacks the conclusion about the about the price increasing in Chester "at all." And when the price in Tiller goes up, that definitely attacks the conclusion because now we do not know if the price is still going to be more than double as the stimulus told us.

Thanks for the great question and we hope this helps!

[Bruin96]

Can someone explain why answer choice D would be incorrect? When looking at the stimulus and question stem, I thought that answer choice B was a given. So, when I saw answer choice D stating that the only benefit was lower costs of energy, I assumed that was the missing link

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Bruin96,

For this question, we want to find what is necessary to know that CesChem will move if the price of natural gas increases in Chester at all. What do we know about CesChem's motivations? Based on the stimulus how will they decide to move? It states that if the cost of natural gas in Chester becomes more than twice that in Tilsen, they'll move to Tilsen. That's a conditional statement, where if the sufficient condition (cost more than twice of Tilsen) occurs, than the necessary condition (moving) also must occur.

Right now, we know the cost is exactly twice as much as Tilsen. The author draws the conclusion that if the cost of natural gas increases in Chester at all, then CesChem will move. It sounds like a reasonable conclusion. If the cost is exactly twice now, any increase in CesChem would make it more than twice the cost. But, that only works if the cost in Tilsen stays the same. If the cost of natural gas rises in Chester, AND rises in Tilsen, then we can't draw the conclusion the stimulus draws. Therefore, in order to draw the conclusion that any increase in the cost of natural gas in Chester would result in a move to Tilsen, we need to know that the cost of natural gas will not increase in Tilsen. That's absolutely required for the conclusion to follow.

Answer choice (D) is not required. Even if there are other benefits to moving to Tilsen, we don't know that the company will move if the cost of natural gas in Chester increases. Let's say that another benefit is that the building in Tilsen has better parking. Does that hurt the conclusion? Does it impact the conditional at all? It really doesn't have much of an effect on our conditional relationship.

Hope that helps!
Rachael

[ssnasir]

Hi there,

Could someone please go over why (E) is wrong. Is it wrong because it doesn't explicitly state that it would move if the price increases relative to Tilsen?

Thank you!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi ssnasir,

Yes, in essence answer choice E is, in conditional reasoning terms, a Mistaken Reversal of the argument's conclusion. The conclusion is a conditional statement that IF the cost increases in Chester at all, THEN the company will move its manufacturing operation to Tilsen. Diagrammed that would be:
Increase in Cost of Natural Gas Move Manufacturing Operations to Tilsen.

What answer choice E states is, in essence, the reverse:
Move Manufacturing Operations to Tilsen Price of Natural Gas Increases

The reason that cannot be an assumption of the argument is that, when an author makes a conditional claim, that author assumes (as is true in every conditional relationship) that the necessary condition could occur without the sufficient condition. So knowing that what the author thinks is a necessary condition has occurred (the moving of manufacturing operations to Tilsen) does not necessarily mean the author thinks the sufficient condition for that thing (the increase in cost of natural gas) has occurred.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[g_lawyered]

Hi P.S.
After reading the explanations above, I'm still trying to understand why answer choice B is Necessary. My error of reasoning when completing this question during PT, is that I missed the emphasis of premise 2 of ""If cost of gas in Chester costs 2x as much in Tilsen". When breaking down the conclusion & premises here is what I solved:

Conclusion: CC gas increases at all CC moves to T
Contrapositive of Conclusion: CC DOESN'T move to T CC gas didn't increase at all (it stayed the same)

P1: CC gas costs 2x more than T
P2: CC cost of gas costs 2x more than T CC move to T
Contrapositive of P2: CC DOESN'T move to T CC costs of gas NOT 2x ore than T

I realize there's a difference between "costs increase at all" and "costs 2x more than T" doesn't mean the same thing, so I can't combine these statements to make a logical chain.
So my 1st question is, where do we get the information that we need to assume what answer choice B states (that T won't increase their gas prices)?
In Kelly's explanation she states: " The author draws the conclusion that if the cost of natural gas increases in Tilsen at all, then CesChem will move. If the cost is exactly twice now, any increase in CesChem would make it more than twice the cost.

But, that only works if the cost in Tilsen stays the same

."

In the 1st sentence of her explanation, I'm sure she meant to say conclusion states that if cost natural gas increases in CHESTER. But what I'm not understanding is what indicates that we have to assume anything about Tilsen prices increasing or not? The conditional statements only indicate/trigger from the sufficient condition, about the costs of Chester prices compared to Tilsen (not the other way around). So where or how can we assume this?

My approach was incorrect in that, I thought there was a missing link in "energy needs". I assumed that the assumption depended on the energy needs of ChesChem. For this reason, I had contender of C and D and picked C as answer choice. After reading explanation, I realize why D isn't necessary/has relevance to the argument.
But what makes answer choice C incorrect? I thought answer C was relevant because I related gas price increasing to being profitable. Whether it was going to be profitable for ChesChem to move to T. Can someone explain where answer C goes wrong?

Any clarification will help. Thanks in advance!

[Adam Tyson]

An assumption is something that the author MUST believe if their argument is to be accepted as valid. If it is not true, the argument falls apart.

In this case, the argument is based on simple math: right now, the cost is Chester is 2x that of Tilsen. If it becomes more than 2x that of Tilsen, they will move. These are the premises, and we are required to accept them as true. Profit is not an issue in this argument, which is why answer C is not a required assumption of the argument. If answer C was incorrect, and if ChesChem could still be profitable even if their energy costs increase, that has no impact on the claim that they will nonetheless move to Tilsen if the energy costs in Chester get relatively higher than they are now.

The conclusion is that ANY increase in costs in Chester will trigger that decision to move. But an increase in the amount in Chester does not by itself prove an increase in the ratio of Chester to Tilsen unless we also know that the Tilsen amount does NOT increase. If answer B is NOT true, and the price in Tilsen increases, then the increase in Chester might NOT mean that it is now more than twice the cost in Tilsen.

Try these simple numbers: in Chester right now, gas costs $2 a gallon, while in Tilsen it is $1 a gallon. If Chester goes up to $3 and Tilsen goes up to $2, Chester is not now more than 2x Tilsen. In fact, the ratio of 2:1 has decreased rather than increasing!

To sum up, the argument is "if the cost in Chester goes up at all, the ratio of Chester to Tilsen will be more than 2:1." That argument requires the assumption that the cost in Tilsen does not also go up, because if that cost does also increase then the ratio could stay the same or even decrease.

(Thanks for the note about the typo in the earlier response, which has now been corrected.)

[g_lawyered]

That makes sense Adam, thank you!
Because you're explanation is more simple than using conditional reasoning statements (as I had posted), does that mean that writing out the conditional reasoning wasn't necessary? I had a hard time with this question because I treated it as the assumption must come from 1 of the conditional statements. This is something that I wasn't able to do, which is why I was tempted with incorrect answer choices. I'm trying to improve on my strategy with assumption questions.

Thanks in advance!