#15 - Outsiders in any field often believe that they can

[KelseyWoods]

Hi PresidentLSAT!

Strong language is harder to prove which is why it's something we're wary of in MBT/MSS answer choices--but it's not something that makes an answer choice automatically incorrect. It just means that we need to have strong language in the stimulus to support the strong language in the answer choice. So that's always what you ask yourself when you see a strong statement in an answer choice: do I have strong enough language in the stimulus to support this strong statement?

But one thing to be specifically on the lookout for is conditional statements. Conditional language is inherently strong so if you have conditional language in the stimulus, then you can support a more strongly worded answer choice. That's the case that we have here: that last sentence is conditional and sets up a strong and absolute relationship that supports answer choice (C). Conditional relationships are absolute, which means they can support other absolute statements.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[ashpine17]

Why is E problematic? Is it because it’s too broad? Like it talks about responsibilities generally and not just what outsiders need for creative solutions?

[ashpine17]

Is the fact that it says should a problem? Maybe not enough to take it out as an answer but a flaw nonetheless? Should is more of a judgement and the stimulus was more factual? Or does all this not matter?

[Robert Carroll]

ashpine,

Why should outsiders be properly trained before being given responsibility? If they attempt creativity, that would be a problem, but why would we assume any outsider would automatically try to solve something creatively? And in the absence of such a situation, the stimulus presents no problem with an outsider being given responsibility in a field.

Robert Carroll

[wdrosenfeld@yahoo.com]

I kind of think this question is really messed up.

I don't think that the stimulus of the question does a good enough job to equate 'creative solutions' the problem being solved, cant there be 'creative solutions' that are also wrong.

If anyone could shed some light on this I would appreciate it.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi wdrosenfeld,

The stimulus specifies that the solutions from the outsiders are expected to be "useful." That would indicate that the creative solutions are expected to work and solve the problem. So for a solution to be effective, it has to come from someone with knowledge, someone who is an insider.

Hope that helps!

[cd1010]

I'm reviewing this question which I missed the first time. Regarding C, I didn't actually get confused by the distinction between people vs fields that the official explanation talks about. But, I didn't think that the stimulus foreclosed the possibility that creative solutions could come from unexperienced people. The author would just say to these outsiders, "sure, that's a creative solution, but that's just futile". I'm thinking here of really out-of-the-box suggestions that seem really attractive and creative, but are actually impractical. So in my mind, there's two categories: creative solutions from outsiders that are futile, and creative solutions from more experienced insiders that the author thinks are better.

In some ways, the issue then revolves around the proper interpretation of sentence 2.

Can you explain why the stimulus forecloses the possibility of outsiders providing creative solutions? The closest I can find is that the stimulus said "attempts at creativity".

[Jeff Wren]

Hi cd,

Your very last statement is exactly the key.

The stimulus states that "attempts at creativity" without experience are futile. A futile attempt means that it does not succeed. To be very precise, it's the attempt at creativity that fails here, not the solution to the problem itself. In other words, according to the stimulus, one cannot have a creative solution without the relevant experience in the field.

This, of course, is different than the "real world," where a solution could be very creative while still being futile, impractical, etc..

Also, it's important to understand how a particular word is being used in the context of the stimulus. Here , the word "creative" is being used in the context of "fresh, useful solutions" as mentioned in the first sentence. So while there are definitely creative, out-of-the-box solutions that are completely impractical in the real world, that is not the context of the term here.

[attorneyatpaw]

I got this question wrong and I think I got spooked by the fact that answer choice (C) used the word "always" which felt too strong and also the phrase "creative solutions" which was not specifically mentioned anywhere in the premise-- the stimulus talked about "creativity" and "problems" separately but I didn't realize that I could link those two concepts into one as demonstrated in answer choice (C). I understand that this is a "most strongly supported" question so the correct answer isn't always going to be proven 100% but I wanted help understanding how I should've known that it was okay to make that inference.

From my reading of the stimulus, it seemed like all three sentences were unrelated statements. Upon a second reading, I'm realizing that maybe I should've equated "fresh, useful solutions" in the first sentence to "creativity" in the second sentence? But then how should I have linked sentence two to sentence three?

[Amber Thomas]

Hi Attorneyatpaw!

You are exactly right. Let's break this down sentence by sentence:

1) Outsiders in any field often believe that they can bring in fresh, useful solutions that have been overlooked by insiders.
2) But in fact, attempts at creativity that are not grounded in relevant experience are futile.
3) Problems can be solved only by people who really understand them, and no one gains such understanding without experience

The "fresh, useful solutions" in sentence one can be translated into "attempts at creativity" in sentence two. The way we can connect sentences two and three is through the concept of relevant experience. Sentence two says that attempts at creative solutions are useless without relevant experience, and sentence three says problems can only be solved by people who really understand them, and you can only really understand a problem with experience.

A helpful way to rephrase the stimulus that connects these concepts together might look like: People outside of a field feel like they can provide creative solutions to fix problems that those already in the field can't fix. However, without grounding in relevant experience, creative solutions won't work. Problems can be solved only by people with relevant experience, because only people with relevant experience can truly understand the problem.

This then leads us to answer choice C-- since ONLY people with relevant experience can understand, and thus fix problems in the field, creative solutions can ONLY or ALWAYS come from people with said experience.

I hope this helps!