Logical Reasoning

PT149 · S1 · Q9 Ted, A senior employee

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Ted, a senior employee, believes he is underpaid and attempts to compensate by routinely keeping short hours, though it is obvious to everyone that he still makes some valuable, unique, and perhaps irreplaceable contributions.

Decision

Ted should not be replaced.

Evidence

It's obvious to everyone that Ted makes some valuable, unique, and perhaps irreplaceable contributions.

Evaluate

Usually for Strengthen-Principle questions, we just predict an "If Premise, then Conclusion" link, so in this case that would be something like

if X obviously makes then you some valuable, unique, → shouldn't request or perhaps irreplaceable that X be contributions replaced

However, the final claim is prefaced by Nevertheless signaling the tension of Tatiana deciding to keep Ted, given that we were told he does have some deficits in his performance that other coworkers have to work harder to compensate for.

When we're doing Strengthen-Principle and we see that the argument is wrestling with a positive and a negative, then the answer will often feel more like it's Weighing Tradeoffs.

Goal

Look for the linking idea we predicted, or look for something saying the positives of Ted (valuable, unique, possibly irreplaceable contributions) outweigh the negatives (a deficit in performance that other coworkers have to work harder to make up for).

9.

Which one of the following principles, if valid, would most help to justify Tatiana's decision?

  1. Correct

    Supervisors should request that an

    Why this is right

    If we contrapose this, it's saying if you don't know all the then you should work done by X can be → not request that performed equally well an employee by another employee be replaced The right side of this conditional matches our conclusion, which is the #1 goal for a Strengthen-Principle answer choice. Does the trigger apply to Ted and Tatiana? Does Tatiana know that all the work by done by Ted could be performed equally well by another employee? She does not. After all, Ted makes some unique and perhaps irreplaceable contributions. If they are 'perhaps irreplaceable' then we are not sure it could be done equally well by another employee. This rule applies to Ted and instructs Tatiana to not request a replacement.

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

    58% picked this

  2. Employers should compensate all their

    Unrelated to Goal

    This is a rule about how employers should compensate an employee. We're looking for a rule about whether an employer should request a replacement for an employee.

    3% picked this

  3. Only someone with greater authority

    Unrelated to Goal

    This is a rule about how who should be entitled to decide on whether Ted should be replaced. We're not trying to justify that Tatiana is a person who's entitled to request a replacement for Ted. We're trying to justify Tatiana's decision to not request a replacement.

    3% picked this

  4. Workers in a work setting

    Unrelated to Goal

    This is a rule about whether a coworker should consider themselves responsible for work. We're looking for a rule about whether an employer should request a replacement for an employee.

    2% picked this

  5. An employee’s contributions in the

    Very Weak

    This would mildly strengthen. Ted works short hours, but we're trying to justify a decision to keep him. So it helps a little to say that "just because he works short hours doesn't mean he only makes 'short' contributions. An employee's contributions are not always a function of time spent on the job." But the strength of "X is not always Y" is really just saying, "at least once, something was X but not Y". Not much heft there. When we compare this to (A), it's not even close. (A) is a conditional that applies to our situation and basically proves Tatiana's decision is the correct one.

    34% picked this

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