Logical Reasoning

PT128 · S3 · Q1 In a transportation company, a

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In a transportation company, a certain syndrome often attributed to stress by medical experts afflicts a significantly higher percentage of workers in Department F than in any other department.

Conclusion (conclude, therefore)

The work done in Department F subjects workers to higher stress levels than does the work in the other departments in the company.j

Evidence

Department F has a higher percentage of workers with syndrome X than does any other department, and syndrome X is often attributed to stress.

Evaluate

This argument follows a common pattern: - it presents a Curious Fact (almost always an asymmetric comparison) in the evidence - the conclusion assumes or states a causal explanation for that curious fact.

Curious Fact ... why do workers in Dept F have a higher rate of getting this syndrome that's associated with stress?

Author's Explanation ... it must be that workers in Dept F undergo more stress than do workers in other departments.

We always approach Explain Curious Fact arguments looking at the same two pressure points: - Alternate Explanations for the curious fact - the plausibility of the Author's Explanation

What could be an alternate reason for why people in Dept F have higher rates of this syndrome? - maybe the syndrome isn't really caused by stress; it's caused by something else like lack of sleep, and people in Dept F get less sleep.

- maybe it is caused by stress, but the stress isn't coming from Dept F; it's just that the workers who work in Dept F have more stressful lives for other reasons (maybe Dept F is full of parents of young children, whereas the other departments more often have people without children or with low-maintenance children).

Goal

Since this is Strengthen, we would want an answer to rule out an Alternate Explanation. Or, more commonly on Strengthen, we would want it to increase the plausibility of the Author's Explanation.

The most common way to increase plausibility of a Cause / Effect connection on LSAT is to hear about data points that show No Cause / No Effect (i.e. when the cause was absent, the effect was absent).

So if we heard something like , that would heavily suggest that Department F was the causal difference-maker responsible for the syndrome.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to support the argument?

Department F has more employees
No Impact
The raw numbers of employees doesn't make any difference, since our evidence is about percentage of workers. Some people might interpret this answer as boosting the plausibility of the claim that Department F subjects workers to higher stress levels. After all, they might think, "the more people there are in your department, the more stressed you'll be". That is not a common sense connection. Sure, for introverts having more people around could increase stress. But it's also possible that departments that are short-staffed are more stressed because there's too much work being spread among too few employees (meanwhile having lots of employees could mean that in Department F, each person's workload is smaller and thus less stressful).
2% picked this
Some experts believe that the
Weakens, if anything
The weak language of "some" is almost always wrong on Strengthen, Weaken, and Paradox. In this case, this answer is suggesting that the syndrome might be caused by something other than stress, which would weaken the argument by creating the potential for an Alternate Explanation for why Dept F suffers from a higher rate of this syndrome.
2% picked this
Correct
Many workers who transfer into
Why this is right
This strengthens the plausibility of the Author's Explanation. She thought that the higher stress level of Department F explained why more people there get this certain syndrome. This answer corroborates that idea by saying that many people who transfer from elsewhere in the company into Department F soon begin to develop the syndrome. This is the sort of covariation strengthener that's so common. When they weren't in Department F (when they worked elsewhere in this company), they didn't have the syndrome. That shows No Cause, No Effect. When they transfer into Department F, they develop the syndrome. This answer doesn't prove the conclusion, naturally. No correct answer to Strengthen does that. In fact this answer doesn't directly address anything about stress levels in Department F. But this answer makes it seem pretty clear that the cause of the syndrome is directly connected to being in Department F. It somewhat rules out the idea of alternate explanations related to the specific employees, because these employees didn't have the syndrome when they worked elsewhere in the company. Coming to Department F seems to have caused the syndrome. And since the syndrome is commonly thought to be caused by stress, it heavily suggests that Department F is extra-stressful.
Skill tested: Strengthen · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
94% picked this
It is relatively common for
No Impact
We don't care in any absolute or broad sense how common or rare this syndrome is among transportation industry workers. We only care about solving the causal mystery behind why this syndrome afflicts a higher percentage of workers in Department F vs. other departments at this company. Lupus is a fairly uncommon disease, but if one elementary school had a higher rate of lupus (say, 2% of students had lupus) than did other elementary schools (where only 0.3% of students had lupus), we would assume that something weird is going on with that school that has the higher rate of lupus.
1% picked this
Job-related stress has been the
Unclear Impact
This answer is somewhat tempting because it helps to establish the plausibility of the idea that working at this company is stressful. After all, if stress is the most common reason that workers there say they're dissatisfied, then it's reasonable to think that working there is stressful. But this doesn't do anything to help us support the claim that Department F is special when it comes to stress. If the conclusion were merely, "the occurrence of this syndrome is being caused by stress", then this would do a better job of strengthening. But since the conclusion is specifically about Department F having more stress than other departments, this answer isn't doing anything to make that claim more plausible.
1% picked this

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