West: Of our company's three quality

Answer choices

1. A

   Wrong Flaw3% picked this

   contending that the argument presupposes what it is trying

   This describes the famous Circular Argument flaw: - conclusion restates the evidence - argument assumes the truth of the conclusion Young is not saying that West's argument was circular. He's just saying, "You have to know the initial reference point here. Haynes inspects way more items than the other two inspectors do."

   3%
2. B

   Relevance vs. Accuracy12% picked this

   questioning the relevance of West's

   Young doesn't question the relevance of the conclusion, just the accuracy. She is suggesting to West that Haynes is actually doing better than the other two, since he's responsible for inspecting way more than half the items, and only half the items returned went through him.

   12%
3. C

   Doesn't Dispute Premise28% picked this

   disputing the accuracy of one of the argument's

   In almost all these 2-Speaker Method questions they have this trap answer. We know that on LSAT, people almost never deny the truth of a premise. They challenge assumptions. They provide other information that re-casts that premise in a new light. But they don't say "No" to a premise. Young does not dispute that half of the returned items were inspected by Haynes.

   28%
4. D

   Too Weak7% picked this

   arguing for a less extreme version of

   Young does not actually explicitly conclude anything. The new context she presents would lead someone mathematically to infer that Haynes is actually outperforming his other inspectors. If he's inspecting 65% of the items but is only responsible for 50% of the returned items, he's doing better than average. So Young's response is not suggesting a less extreme version. It would be suggesting a contradictory version: Haynes is definitely not the worst of the 3 (he may even be the best)

   7%
5. E

   Correct50% picked this

   denying one of the argument's

   Why this is right

   In order for West to think it's bad that Haynes is responsible for 50% of the returned items, he has to be assuming that Haynes inspected less than 50% of the original items that got sold. Presumably, West is assuming that because there are three quality control inspectors, they're each responsible for about 33.3% of the appliances sold. You need to assume that Haynes is inspecting less than 50% of the items in order to see that 50% of the returned items went through him and think, "He seems disproportionately bad. He's clearly the worst!" Young says that Haynes is inspecting way more than 50% of the items, so she is denying the assumption that Haynes is inspecting less than 50% of the items.

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

   50%