#18 - Decentralization enables divisions of a large

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi est,

The issue with D is the word "usually." We don't know what percentage of large institutions are decentralized, so it is possible that they are usually decentralized and therefore usually the central administrations are not responsible for details. We also don't know in what percentage of non-decentralized large institutions the administrations focus on details. Does that make sense?

[lsacgals101]

Complete Question Explanation

Must be True—SN. The correct answer choice is (A)

By the percentages of people answering this problem correctly, this is the fi rst truly killer question
of the section. Interestingly, the stimulus is fairly easy to understand. The stimulus consists of
information describing the various benefi ts of decentralization to large organizations:

Decentralization allows for autonomy, which always permits more realistic planning and
encourages innovation.

Decentralization allows the central administration to focus on the big picture rather than
details.

Since you are asked to fi nd the most strongly supported statement, you should simply look for a
response that follows from the information in the stimulus.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. Most students are probably turned off by
the certainty of this answer choice, but such language is supported by the stimulus. Since, in large
organizations, autonomy always allows more realistic planning, planning in a large organization
without autonomous divisions cannot be as realistic as possible.

Remember, extreme answers are not necessarily wrong in Must Be True questions. They are only
incorrect if the language of the stimulus is not extreme.
Answer choice (B): This response may be attractive, but is incorrect. The autonomy involved in
decentralization encourages innovation, but that does not mean that centralized organizations
discourage innovation. This answer choice is similar to a Mistaken Negation, and must be
eliminated.

Answer choice (C): The stimulus listed some benefi ts of decentralization, but never weighed them
against any drawbacks, so you cannot conclude from the stimulus anything certain about the value of
decentralization relative to centralization, so this choice is wrong.

Answer choice (D): This was the most popular incorrect answer choice. Although the stimulus
indicates that the central administrations of large institutions are partially responsible for some of the
details of daily operations, we do not know that the central administrations of large institutions are
partially responsible for most of the details of daily operations.

Answer choice (E): The stimulus stated that autonomy always permits more realistic planning, and
strongly encourages innovation, but those statements do not mean that the people implementing the
policies are always able to achieve those ends. This difference in certainty makes this answer choice
incorrect.

Furthermore, the stimulus discussed people who make decisions and are involved in implementation,
but this choice only mentions people who are involved in implementation. Implementation was an
essential part of improving decision making, but you should not make the mistake of assuming that
anyone involved in implementation is also involved in decision-making, because that would be a
Mistaken Reversal.

Hi,

I am writing about answer choice B, which states that "innovation is not always encouraged in large centralized institutions." I diagrammed the statement like this:

~Autonomous <--Some--> ~Innovation ... which, thus also can be diagrammed as ~Innovation <--Some--> ~Autonomous.

I read the posts on this thread about mapping "always permits more realistic planning," but notice that there was no commentary on how to map the part about strongly encouraged innovation...

I diagrammed that part of the sentence as follows:

Decentralized --> Innovation (encouraged)
Contrapositive: ~ Innovation (encouraged) --> ~ Decentralized

This leads me to believe that answer B supplies an inherent inference to that contrapostive mapped above^

~Innovation <--Some--> ~Decentralized [an inherent inference of the contrapositive (~ Innovation (encouraged) --> ~ Decentralized)]
~Decentralized <--Some--> ~Innovation (answer B) being the same as ~ Innovation (encouraged) <--Some--> ~ Decentralized...


I would so appreciate your advice on this !

[Brook Miscoski]

lsacgals,

The diagram of "innovation is not always encouraged in large institutions" is:

LI -IE

I don't know why you are equating large institutions with a lack of autonomy. The first sentence of the stimulus does not establish that autonomy requires decentralization, only that it can arise from decentralization.

Even if you treated the first sentence as a conditional, which it is not, the stimulus doesn't say that there are any large institutions that haven't decentralized. Therefore, even treating the first sentence as a conditional, you can't conclude LI -A.

The remaining flaws in your diagramming seem to emanate from chaining "some" statements together. You can't do that to make an inference. Think about it this way. "Some" only means "at least one." If you have 10 houses and some have white paint and some have red trim, that could mean 1 out of 10 have white paint and 1 out of 10 have red trim, and there's no reason for there to be an overlap. Don't chain "some" statements together.

There is also the more abstract flaw:

A I
-I -A

Does not allow you to conclude -A -I because you have no idea whether there are any cases of -I. You might be able to conclude I A from context if the conditional rule is talking about a sufficient condition that definitely exists. But you shouldn't need to worry about that on the LSAT unless you're scoring too high to be worried.

In general, you need to start by diagramming what the choice actually says instead of skipping that step if you are going to use diagramming to answer a question, and that will give you a chance to notice the problems with (B) I've pointed out as you attempt to derive (B) from the stimulus. You need to go back and review the how you are able to create and chain formal logic statements together and be more careful. Right now you are very focused on creating diagrams, which is good, but you need to spend a bit more time to make sure you are in control of what the diagrams tell you.

[hdb2020]

Hi,
I'm having trouble with wrapping my head around diagramming the first sentence. I keep thinking that decentralization is the necessary condition because of the word "enables." I'm thinking that "enables" means it does not HAVE to indicate autonomy occurs, rather it "could" occur. So I diagrammed this:
Autonomy --> decentralization

Any advice on how to look at this more clearly?
Thank you!

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi hbd,

I think you have good instincts to be concerned about the term "enables" here. I would not diagram the first sentence as a conditional, because I don't think enables is being used conditionally. If anything, it's sort of causal---the decentralization is what causes the divisions to function autonomously. The conditional language or clue starts in the next sentence, where it tells us that the autonomous functioning ALWAYS permits more realistic planning.

Good work not forcing a conditional where it really isn't needed!

[mer3xc]

Would it be incorrect to think of the correct answer to this question as a necessary assumption (sort of)? If this set of facts were turned into an argument about the merits of decentralization, it would seem like A would be necessary to that argument -- i.e. if the large institution WAS maximally realistic in its planning, there wouldn't be any reason to have an argument to advocate for decentralization in the first place.

[Ryan Twomey]

Hey Mer3xc,

I would not think of this as an assumption question. Assumption questions and must be true questions are very different. You are simply looking for the answer choice that is most supported by the stimulus.

I thought some of the explanations above were amazing, but this answer choice can simply be backed up by the conditional statement in the second sentence.

I would not over complicate your process. In must be true questions, try and pick the answer choice that is most validated by the passage. In this case, answer choice A is validated by the strong language in the second sentence. I would not have mapped out the first sentence, but I would have mapped out the second sentence.

I hope all of this helps, and I wish you all of the luck in your studies.

Best,
Ryan

[tmanmw2]

Hello! This is a semi-follow up to a question I posted in the general questions section of the forum re causal degrees. I searched and (eventually) found this question that illustrates my causal degrees question better. Here, I got this question right because I assumed "permits" is causal language, and therefore if we have less autonomous functioning (less cause), then we would have less realistic planning (less effect), thus making "maximally realistic" planning NOT possible. Is my reasoning accurate on this?

Thank you!

[Dana D]

Hey tmanmw2 ,

Glad you're following up on this with an example! This stimulus is not a cause and effect question, it's just regular conditional reasoning. "Permits" is much more passive than "to cause" - here, decentralization allows autonomy to occur, but it does not necessarily cause autonomy, because there are many other ways to achieve autonomy. Causal relationships are very strict - only the stated cause can generate the effect, the cause has to come before the effect, the effect cannot occur without the cause, etc etc. That's not what is being described here.

You likely diagrammed or thought about this question correctly, minus the "causation" idea, but here's how it would be diagrammed:

Decentralization Autonomous functioning more realistic planning and innovation
also
Decentralization central admin not overwhelmed

Answer choice (A) is correct becuase it is the first statement tells us that when we have decentralization, there will be "more realistic" planning - so whatever was going on before things got decentralized will now be improved. That's a firm truth from this stimulus. So it must be true that in places where things are not decentralized, maximum realistic planning is not achieved, because if it were, how could planning get "more" realistic upon decentralization?

Again, your diagram might match what I have above but instead of thinking about this as a cause/effect, think of decentralization as the sufficient condition which tells you additional information. When you have a decentralized workplace, you know planning is more realistic and innovation is increased - but again, decentralization does not cause these things. If the stimulus said something like "decentralization causes more realistic planning" then we have a clear cause/effect relationship, but that's not the case here.

Hope that helps!