#16 - Professor: Unfortunately, pharmaceutical companies and

[lanereuden]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption—SN. The correct answer choice is (D)

After a slight break in Question 15, a mid-section trend of long stimuli, which began in Question 14, will continue through Question 18. As with Question 14, however, the length of this stimulus masks an otherwise straightforward argument. And, while there are several conditional relationships in the stimulus, you can readily identify the logical flaw without resorting to diagramming those relationships.

Here, the professor expresses concern about funding for the chemistry department’s research. Currently, pharmaceutical companies and other profit-driven institutions provide nearly all of the funding. The professor states that, unless the chemistry department can secure more funding for basic science research, it is highly unlikely that any significant advances in basic research will come out of the department. Based on this fact, the professor concludes that without increased funding from sources other than profit-driven institutions, the chemistry department is unlikely to gain the prestige that only achievements in basic science research confer.

The stimulus is very wordy, but the argument is simple. The chemistry department needs more funding to perform the basic science research that could gain the department prestige. The current funding comes from pharmaceutical companies and profit-driven institutions. So, to do the research needed to gain prestige, the department needs to increase funding from sources other than profit-driven institutions.

But why is it necessary for the funding to come from institutions that are not profit-driven? The argument offers no support for this shift in funding source being required. For example, we are not told that there is no more for-profit funding available. So, this transition in the conclusion without support is a logical flaw.

The question stem identifies this as an Assumption question. Your prephrase is that the correct answer choice will likely defend the conclusion against the possibility that there is more funding available from the profit-driven sources.

Answer choice (A): Remember that the correct answer choice is necessary for the conclusion to be valid. This choice presents a reversal of the evidence presented in the stimulus, and runs counter to the conclusion. More funding was necessary to conduct the research that could lead to significant advances, while this answer choice treats additional funding as sufficient to produce significant advances.

Answer choice (B): As with choice (A), this choice depends on a factual situation that runs counter to the conclusion, in which the professor stated the chemistry department is unlikely to gain prestige. Also, this scenario reverses the relationship described in the scenario, in which funding was needed to increase prestige.

Answer choice (C): Again, the information in this choice is inconsistent with the professor’s argument, in which he discussed the need for additional funding, as opposed to stating the need to remove current funding sources. The problem the professor associated with the current funding was not that too much of it came from profit-driven sources, but rather that more funding was needed than could be obtained from the profit-driven sources.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. This choice makes express the idea implicit in the professor’s argument that funding from the profit-driven sources is unlikely to increase. If this were not the case, and the chemistry department’s funding were likely to increase even if the funding from sources other than profit-driven institutions did not increase, then the conclusion in the stimulus would be invalid.

Answer choice (E): Since nothing in the stimulus implied that the existence of some benefit to the funding sources was necessary for the funding levels to increase, this choice is incorrect.

Two things, I got D right because the others were so plainly wrong
1st thing: I prephrased, its funding is not likely to increase if they stay with the for profit companies
Is this a wrong pre phrase—I mean, it’s sorta the same as D.

2nd thing: when you negate D, how do you know what to negate? I mean, you could negate is not likely...to likely,

Or you could do: does not increase to does increase

Of course, you wouldn’t make both changes—but how do you determine which (i notices in this case, it seems, you negate not likely to likely)

[sumzsl]

Hi,

I was able to eliminate C and E easily and I was left with A, B and D. I understand now how D is correct. But could A and B be eliminated for the following reasons:

A) "will" seemed too strong. The stimulus mentions likely and even highly unlikely/likely but "will" seemed to go too far for an assumption.

B) the prestige doesn't need to increase "substantially." The stimulus just mentioned an increase.

Both of these seem to go too far for an assumption. After spending several minutes really trying to understand the stimulus on BR, I understand the missing gap. But under timed conditions, or even in general, are these acceptable reasons to eliminate the above two answers?

Thank you!

[James Finch]

Hi Sumzl,

The stimulus contains a logical gap, an assumption that is being made that we need to identify. So we first need to see whether that will be a Supporter Assumption, which, similar to a Justify/Sufficient Assumption, will fill a clear hole in the link between conclusion and premises, or if it's a Defender Assumption that is required for a relatively self-contained argument in the stimulus to make sense.

Here, we have an identifiable gap between the idea of funding other than profit-driven sources and the premise that basic science research needs more funding, period. From that knowledge, there are two potential Prephrases to come up with: either having funding from profit-driven sources somehow inhibits basic science research (something the first sentence hints at but doesn't explicitly state) or that funding from profit-driven revenue sources won't increase. (D) gives us this second Prephrase, albeit in obtuse language.

The other answer choices aren't actually necessary to the argument: (A) is dealing with the wrong elements, as we need to prove that basic science research requires more funding from non-profit sources, not that more funding overall will automatically lead to breakthroughs in basic science research. The scope is also wrong, being certain as opposed to a likelihood.

(B) is just a reversal of the conclusion, which doesn't help actually get us to the conclusion, making it irrelevant.

Hope this helps!

[juandresmc]

Hello,

I was not able to apply correctly the Assumption Negation Technique to answer choice (D) because of the two negatives. How do you negate a statement containing two negatives?

Thank you very much, looking forward for your response.

Regards,

Andrés

[Adam Tyson]

If an answer has two negatives, then you negate by changing just one of them to a positive, Andrés. For example, "None of my children have no children of their own" would be negated by turning that "none" into a "some" - "Some of my children have no children of their own."

But getting away from the technical aspect of negatives and positives, try focusing on the overall purpose of negation for this test. An Assumption is something the author must believe is true for their argument to make sense. The negation test is about saying that whatever the author assumed is NOT true, because if something they require is taken away, then the argument should fall apart. In other words, your goal in using the Negation Technique is to say that the answer choice in question is FALSE. You can do this by inserting or deleting a word here or there, but you can also do it by changing the statement in a more holistic manner, including by just inserting the magic phrase "It is not true that..." at the beginning of the answer choice. In my example above that gets us three negatives - "It is not true that none of my children have no children of their own."

Another thing to look at in the answers is whether they are, like answer D here, conditional. Answer D is an "if this, then that" answer, and one way to negate a conditional statement is to say that the necessary condition isn't actually necessary. Reword the answer to say it is possible for the sufficient condition to occur and for the necessary condition NOT to occur. If the alleged necessary condition is not actually necessary, then the conditional claim is false. Here, that would be "If funding from non-profit sources does not increase, it is still possible that overall funding will increase." See how that denies the truth of the answer and causes the argument to fall apart?

In short, remember the goal in negation is to make the answer false. However you do that is fine, whether by a mechanical approach of adding or deleting a word, or by inserting "it is not true that...", or by rewording the answer completely to deny the truth of that answer.

[nowornever]

The diagrams above certainly helped me understand why I got this question wrong.
However, do you recommend students actually diagram these types of problems during the test?
I feel like I would have had a better chance of getting this question right if I had of diagrammed the conditional reasoning and then noticed the faulty logic. However, is this a realistic strategy given time constraints on the test?

Or is better to just drill these types of questions?

Truthfully, I didn't even really notice the word "unless" in the stimulus, and certainly didn't take the time to note it's significance to the question. Am I taking a too literal, common-sense reading approach to these questions?

I understand the use of "unless" and how we use it to arrive at the correct conditional statement, but I definitely didn't notice the significance it played when reading the stimulus in this question, and I imagine I will do it again in the future. The word "unless" is so innocuous in everyday language that I didn't pay particular attention to it in this case. Tips/suggestions (other than "yea, pay closer attention!")?

Thanks!

[Paul Marsh]

Hi nowornever! Good question. It really comes down to your personal preference and comfort. When I did this question, I didn't diagram it. But a different instructor might default to diagramming this one. I certainly don't think it's unrealistic to diagram this question under the time constraints of the actual test. It involves clear conditional language (e.g. "unless"), and it's very reasonable to have a baseline policy of "I'm going to diagram every single LR question that clearly uses conditional reasoning". If you get comfortable enough with diagramming and manipulating conditionals, you can diagramming conditionals on LR without having it take up too much time. Last thing I'll say for this is that you should try to practice how you're actually going to approach the question on test day. If you're going to rely on diagrams, make sure you're diagramming for every conditional question so that you get speedy at it. Whereas if you'd prefer not to diagram most conditional questions, make sure you're well-practiced at attacking those questions without diagrams so that you're comfortable manipulating conditionals in your head.

As for your last question, I'd recommend keeping a running list of those "innocuous" sounding words that actually have outsized meanings on the LSAT. They include words like "unless", "only", "should", "will", "most", and plenty of others! Keep referring back to that list, and maybe turn it into flashcards or whatever else helps you remember things more easily. You want to get to the point where the appearance of any of those words is setting off major alarm bells in your head.

Hope that helps!