Logical Reasoning

PT12 · S1 · Q22 At the end of the year

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At the end of the year, Wilson’s Department Store awards free merchandise to its top salespeople.

Conclusion

The number of salespeople passed over for these "free merchandise for top salespeople" awards has declined.

Evidence (since)

Over the past fifteen years, the number of salespeople receiving these awards has gone down a bunch.

The award criterion at present is .

Evaluate

Let's throw some numbers at this to understand the mathematical changes that are happening.

Let's say that 15 yrs. ago, there were 90 employees. The top 1/3 of the sales force gets an award, so that would have been 30 employees getting it, 60 employees getting passed over.

Let's say nowadays only 20 people get the award. If that's the top 1/3 of the sales force, then the sales force is 60 employees, and 40 employees are getting passed over.

It looks like the President's conclusion would be correct. Fewer people didn't get an award this year, compared to 15 years ago.

Huh. We're not supposed to already think the conclusion is airtight, but it seems pretty mathematically valid. If the policy is to give the top 1/3 of the salesforce an award, and the bottom 2/3 get passed over, then those two numbers will either grow together or shrink together.

Goal

Many/most of us are going to be stumped at this point, and we'll have to go the answers thinking,

Some of us might notice the curious wording of,

Why would LSAC throw in that "at present"? It seems totally unnecessary.. It seems to be allowing for the possibility that the award criterion was different in the past. That's the potential wiggle room where the conclusion could still be wrong.

22.

Which one of the following is an assumption that would allow the company president’s conclusion to be properly drawn?

  1. Policies at Wilson’s with regard

    Out of Scope: hiring policies

    The only thing that can affect the conclusion being true is whether the criterion for giving these awards has always been the same. If the criterion for the award has always been "top 1/3", then the conclusion follows logically. But if the criterion shifted from "the top 50%" to "the top 1/3", then the conclusion wouldn't follow. 15 years ago (top 50%) 100 employees, 50 get awards, 50 don't now (top 1/3) 90 employees, 30 get awards, 60 don't With this shift in criterion, the conclusion doesn't follow. There are more people being passed over now than in the past. This answer is talking about how strict their hiring policies are, but this argument is purely about the mathematics of what share of employees get an award. So information about hiring practices can't seal the deal logically.

    5% picked this

  2. The number of salespeople at

    Weakens

    This answer feels very counterintuitive. Since the number of people getting awards was declining, and since the author was saying that the number of people not-getting awards was also declining, it feels like there should be fewer salespeople, not more. If the criterion for the award has always been "top 1/3", and the number of salespeople has increased, then conclusion would be contradicted. 15 years ago (top 1/3) 120 employees, 40 get awards, 80 don't now (top 1/3) 150 employees, 50 get awards, 100 don't Since this answer seems to contradict the conclusion, it definitely doesn't allow us to prove the conclusion.

    12% picked this

  3. Correct

    The criterion used by Wilson’s

    Why this is right

    The only thing that can affect the conclusion being true is whether the criterion for giving these awards has always been the same. If the criterion for the award has always been "top 1/3", then the conclusion follows logically.

    Skill tested: Sufficient Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    60% picked this

  4. The average total sales figures

    Out of Scope: sales figures

    The only thing that can affect the conclusion being true is whether the criterion for giving these awards has always been the same. If the criterion for the award has always been "top 1/3", then the conclusion follows logically. But if the criterion shifted from "the top 50%" to "the top 1/3", then the conclusion wouldn't follow. 15 years ago (top 50%) 100 employees, 50 get awards, 50 don't now (top 1/3) 90 employees, 30 get awards, 60 don't With this shift in criterion, the conclusion doesn't follow. There are more people being passed over now than in the past. This answer is talking about total sales figures, but this argument is purely about the mathematics of what share of employees get an award. So information about overall sales can't seal the deal logically.

    15% picked this

  5. Wilson’s calculates its salespeople’s sales

    Out of Scope: how it calculates

    This is similar to the correct answer, but we don't need to know that the company uses the same methods nowadays to rank all their salespeople's performance. We need to know, once those rankings are established, how Wilson's decides which ones get the award. If 15 years ago, the share of employees getting the award was 1/3 or less, then the conclusion mathematically follows, no matter how Wilson's decided on those sales figures.

    9% picked this

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