#3 - Reviewer: Almost all books that offer management advice

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Justify the Conclusion. The correct answer choice is (D).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (E):


This explanation is still in progress, Please post any questions below!

[giants10]

Hello. I was wondering if you could help explain why E is incorrect. I understand why D is correct, but do not understand why E is incorrect. Thank you!

[Adam Tyson]

The problem with answer E, giants10, is that what the managers prefer isn't relevant to what is actually useful. Their preference to read what they think will be useful tells us nothing about whether the advice in the management books written from the perspective of CEOs will actually be useful to them! We are trying here to justify the conclusion - to prove that the advice in management books (which are mostly written from the perspective of CEOs) will be of limited use. Our answer, then, needs to address that issue of perspective and connect it to the idea of usefulness. Answer D makes that connection, and answer E does not.

Make sure your answer choice fully closes the gap between the premises and the conclusion! Connect those "rogue" elements, and you will be well on the way to selecting the best answer.

[theamazingrace]

I was originally going to choose A but then I read D and thought it was a much better answer. Now that I am reviewing I am trying to understand why A is wrong. Is it because is too general? or is it because It doesn't mention usefulness?

Thank you in advance!

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Grace,

In this scenario, you are attempting to add an answer choice that will, by its mere addition, prove the conclusion that "the advice in management books is of limited use for most managers." If you isolate just the premises and answer choice (A), would that, to you, automatically produce that exact conclusion? Go back and take a look at that, and read the first two sentences of the stimulus and then (A). Take a moment and think about what all that adds up to. Is the conclusion you then draw the same as the last sentence in the stimulus?

I don't think it would be. But this is the exact standard you have to use with any answer choice on a Justify question! Here, what the books rarely do as far as perspective isn't helpful in determining whether the books will actually be of value to most managers.

Thanks!

[smtq123]

Please help me with the negation of Option D.
Option D: Advice is of limited use UNLESS it is offered from the perspective of the recipient.
Negation of Option D: Advice is of limited use EVEN IF it is NOT offered from the perspective of the recipient.
I am unable to understand how the negation of option D is impacting the conclusion. Kindly help.

[atierney]

For this Justify the Conclusion question, you are looking for the gap in the argument. The premises indicate that most managers do not share the perspective of the most of the authors who write books on management advice. The conclusion then indicates a new idea, mainly that of the usefulness (or lack thereof) such books have for managers. While one may infer the connection between perspective and usefulness, the conditional statement that proves this argument correct is that if the advice (in the form of a book) is offered from the perspective not shared by the recipient, then the advice is useless (limited use).

This is the contrapositive of Answer choice D.

Let me know if you have further questions on this.

[LawSchoolDream]

I am very lost with this one. I understand how Justify questions are meant to connect the gap between premise and conclusion however I just can't wrap my head around why D is correct and E is incorrect. Can you please go into details for why D is correct? I read the thread but don't really see a detailed analysis. thanks

[Robert Carroll]

LawSchoolDream,

Break the argument down:

premise: It's not written from their perspective.

conclusion: it's of limited use to them

That's not a good argument. Imagine that I am a professional poker player who wants to read a book about probability to improve my game. Imagine further that I discover that the best-rated text on probability theory is by a professor of mathematics who was writing his book to instruct graduate students in pure math. The perspective of the author is probably wildly different from my perspective. But couldn't the book still be incredibly useful? Of course! So the argument is bad. But our job is to Justify the Conclusion. So we want the argument to be good. It would be very good for the argument if the author's perspective and the reader's perspective did indeed have to match in order for a book to be useful. Answer choice (D) bridges that gap.

What managers prefer is not relevant to the argument, so answer choice (E) does nothing. It's all about what's useful.

Robert Carroll