University administrator: Graduate students

Answer choices

1. A

   No Impact3% picked this

   The administrator is cognizant of the extra costs involved in granting employee benefits

   This sounds like something we already assumed is true. The administrator is aware of how much healthcare / 401k costs, so he doesn't want to give TA's full benefits. If he were not cognizant would it make any difference? No, not really. Just an irrelevant detail. His whole case is "we're doing them a favor; we have ta draw the line at paying them. We can't also give them the usual benefits."

   3%
2. B

   No Impact16% picked this

   The university employs adjunct instructors who receive compensation similar to that of

   This answer is a lot easier to interpret with outside knowledge of what adjunct instructors are — they are not full time instructors who work at a university. They're more like guest lecturers/teachers who teach like one class per semester. So they're more like contractors than employees. They don't get the usual benefits. (A lot of school are hiring more and more adjunct instructors than full professors in order to save money, just like a lot of businesses hire employees through temp agencies so that they don't have to pay those employees salary + benefits). Hence, comparing TA's to adjunct instructors doesn't weaken, since adjunct instructors are considered university employees and don't receive the usual employee benefits. I'm not sure how LSAC expected students to interpret this answer if the student didn't already know what an adjunct professor is.

   16%
3. C

   Correct48% picked this

   The university has proposed that in the interest of economy, 10 percent of the faculty be

   Why this is right

   This unravels the administrator's claim that the sole purpose for TA's holding their teaching positions is trying to help the TA's to be able to afford school. If the TA's could afford school, then they wouldn't have teaching positions. This answer makes that sound totally disingenuous -- if the university is thinking about replacing 10% of the faculty with TA's in the interest of the economy, then they're not giving TA's teaching positions just for their sake, they're giving TA's teaching positions in order to exploit them as cheaper labor. Although this answer certainly sounds like a decent objection to bring up in real life, because it exposes that the administrator was lying or being disingenuous by making it seem like having TA's teach was pure charity on behalf of the university, this is a really weird correct answer on LSAT. It weakens by basically giving us a way to say, "Your premises are lies!", which of course is how we're taught not to think on LSAT. It's a good reminder that there is no actual rule that says you can't weaken by invalidating a premise. It's just something that almost never happens, so we don't expect to see it. There are something like 3-5 examples of this ever (this being one of them).

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

   48%
4. D

   No Impact27% picked this

   Most teaching assistants earn stipends that exceed their cost

   If anything, this would strengthen, since it sounds like the university is already being generous with its compensation for TA's and thus needn't sweeten the pot any more by throwing in the usual employee benefits. We were told that TA's receive financial compensation in order to "fund their education". Funding education goes beyond tuition. Students also need to buy books and pay for room and board, so the fact that their stipend exceeds the cost of tuition aligns with what we've already been told.

   27%
5. E

   Too Weak6% picked this

   Teaching assistants work as much and as hard as do other

   This somewhat leans in the right direction. "They should be treated like regular employees and get the usual benefits. After all, they work just as much as as hard as others." But this doesn't really provide any sort of conversation-changer. The administrator will say, "I'm sure they do. The fact remains, we are already being generous with them. If they weren't in need of money, we wouldn't even give them these teaching posts."

   6%