LSAT 120 – Section 4 – Question 15

LSAT 120 - Section 4 - Question 15

October 2005

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT120 S4 Q15
+LR
+Exp
Sufficient assumption +SA
Conditional Reasoning +CondR
Link Assumption +LinkA
A
16%
157
B
14%
158
C
19%
160
D
3%
156
E
48%
165
153
162
172
 +Hardest 146.628 +SubsectionMedium

J.Y.’s explanation

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People who have doctorates in the liberal arts are interested in improving their intellects. Companies, however, rarely hire people who are not concerned with the financial gain that can be obtained by hard work in the business world. As a result, companies rarely hire people who have doctorates in the liberal arts.

Summary
The author concludes that if you have a doctorate in the liberal arts, companies will rarely hire you. This is based on the following:
If you have a doctorate in the liberal arts, you are interested in improving your intellect.
If you are not concerned with the financial gain that you can get in the business world, then companies will rarely hire you.

Missing Connection
We’re trying to prove that people with doctorates in the liberal arts are rarely hired by companies.
We have a premise that leads to “rarely hired by companies” — if we can learn that people with doctorates in the liberal arts are not concerned with financial gain, that will establish that they are rarely hired by companies.
How can we prove that people with doctorates in the liberal arts are not concerned with financial gain? Well another premise tells us that people with doctorates in the liberal arts are interested in improving their intellects.
If we can show that “interested in improving intellects” leads to “not concerned with financial gain,” that will establish that people with doctorates in the liberal arts aren’t concerned with financial gain, which will in turn establish that they are rarely hired by companies.

A
Companies would hire people with doctorates in the liberal arts if such people were interested in the money available in the business world.
We’re trying to show that people with doctorates in liberal arts are rarely hired. To do this, we want to show that people with doctorates in liberal arts are not interested in financial gain. Learning what happens to people with doctorates in liberal arts if the ARE interested in financial gain doesn’t establish that these people are NOT interested in financial gain.
B
Some people who are interested in the liberal arts do not care about money.
We don’t know whether people with doctorates in the liberal arts are among the “some people who are interested in the liberal arts” in this answer.
C
The only people not interested in making money in the business world are people who are interested in improving their intellects.
“The only” introduces a sufficient condition. (”Only” without “the” before it introduces necessary.) So (C) tells us that IF you’re not interested in making money, then you’re interested in improving intellect. But this reverses what we want. We want to know that if you’re interested in improving intellect, then you’re not interested in financial gain.
D
People with doctorates in the liberal arts are interested in employment in the business world.
(D) doesn’t establish that people with doctorates in the liberal arts are not interested in the financial gain of the business world. So it doesn’t prove that people with doctorates in the liberal arts are rarely hired by companies.
E
Only people not concerned with making money in the business world are interested in improving their intellects.
“Only” introduces a necessary condition. So (E) tells us that if someone is interested in improving intellect, then that person is not concerned with making money in the business world. This provides the missing link between the two premises, which allows us to conclude that people with doctorates in the liberal arts are rarely hired by companies.

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LSAT PrepTest 120 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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