This is a weakening question, which we should recognize as the question stem says: Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
The stimulus begins by informing us that stress is not one of the primary complaints of workers. Following this context, the author cites a recent survey in which boredom was listed as the main complaint of a majority of workers. Based on this survey, the author concludes that job-related stress is not the most serious problem for workers. Our job is to weaken this conclusion. One thing we should notice is that the support concerns what workers complain about, while the conclusion is about what the most serious problem for workers is. Surely it's possible to not complain the most about something even if it is your most serious problem! Let's see what the answer choices have in store for us:
Answer Choice (A) We are interested in whether there is a reason to assume that stress is the most serious problem workers in the corporate world face. This only tells us that a particular subset of workers is less likely to complain about stress than are workers as a whole.
Correct Answer Choice (B) If boredom correlates with stress, and a majority of workers complain of boredom, then we have a reason to believe that the study the author cites actually suggests that stress might be the most serious problem workers face.
Answer Choice (C) This answer may somewhat weaken the accuracy of the survey, insofar as workers may be exaggerating recent experiences of boredom, but it does so in a fairly minor way, and the survey being somewhat poorer evidence does not significantly weaken the argument as a whole.
Answer Choice (D) This just tells us about a subset of workers and how they complain about boredom. There is nothing here for us to work with to weaken the argument's actual conclusion.
Answer Choice (E) Seems reasonable, but I don't see how this would weaken the conclusion that stress is not the main problem for corporate workers. We are interested in stress, not the relative tendency to complain.
This is an EXCEPT resolve, reconcile, explain question, indicated in the question stem by: Each of the following, if true, helps resolve the apparent discrepancy EXCEPT:
The stimulus tells us that on average people spend significantly less time reading now than 50 years ago, but many more books are bought overall. There is an intuitive discrepancy between a decrease in reading and increase in books sold, but we should recognize that there are a lot of ways of explaining it. For example, we are comparing an average to a total; if the population has increased, then we would expect more books to be sold even if the rate at which people read them, and hence bought them, decreased. That also leads to another obvious issue; can we assume people buying books means they read them? If you are anything like me, you are much better at buying books than reading them. Maybe people just have more income to spend so they are buying more books, even though they don’t have as much time to read! Since this is an EXCEPT question, we are looking for the one answer that doesn’t explain the apparent discrepancy. Let’s see what we get!
Answer Choice (A) This is one issue we identified in the stimulus; more people means more books sold, even if, on average, people read less.
Answer Choice (B) Ok, so maybe people are reading less but a larger share of readers purchase their books rather than borrow them. Makes sense!
Answer Choice (C) So a subset of literate people have a reason to purchase more books even if the set as a whole is reading less.
Correct Answer Choice (D) What people do with their books doesn’t really help us if it doesn’t explain how sales could be higher while reading declined
Answer Choice (E) If books are shorter, then people could be reading less while buying more books!
Here we have a weakening question, as we are introducing a premise which weakens an argument: Which one of the following, if true, could Mark cite to counter evidence offered by Tina?
Our stimulus takes the form of a debate between Mark and Tina about whether paper or plastic-foam cups are more environmentally friendly. Mark begins by telling us that p-f cups contain chlorofluorocarbons, which are bad for the environment, and gives us his conclusion; paper cups are the better option. The LSAT sure loves these tongue-twister chemical compounds! But that’s not all Mark has for us, he further informs us that the production of p-f cups also produces the carcinogen styrene, and the cups never biodegrade. They definitely don’t sound like a great option so far. Let’s see what Tina has to say!
Tina begins by claiming that Mark isn’t properly considering the downsides of paper cups. To be fair to Tina, Mark didn’t really give us an argument about why paper cups are good, he just brought up a bunch of downsides of p-f cups. Tina cites a study from 5 years earlier which concluded that paper cups required much more resources to produce than p-f cups. Even worse, paper cups take more energy to transport. And if that wasn’t enough, the paper mills produce pollution and the cups themselves produce even more when they decay. Wow, this seems like a lose-lose situation! Maybe we should all just switch to glasses? But our job is to weaken Tina’s argument; we want some evidence that will make paper cups look better than p-f cups. Let’s see what the answer choices give us:
Answer Choice (A) This just gives another downside for paper cups!
Answer Choice (B) Our argument is about the actual environmental downsides of the two cup types, and regardless this just supports Tina’s foam cups.
Correct Answer Choice (C) This is the only answer that weakens Tina’s support. If the paper mills use waste wood instead of petroleum, then Tina’s points about the relative resource consumption and mill pollution are less of an issue for Mark.
Answer Choice (D) This weakens Mark’s argument!
Answer Choice (E) Same as A!
This is a Necessary Assumption question because it is asking us for an answer which the argument in the stimulus depends on. This is a classic NA question stem that we want to become very familiar with and confident in easily and confidently ID’ing.
The stimulus is not particularly confusing in how it is written, but it does get into some concepts which can be a challenge.
In 1980, our Country had a higher GDP than Europe by $5,000. Great. Ten years later, that gap had grown to $6,000. At this point, we might anticipate a lot of ways this argument could go wrong. Because this is a comparative relationship between Country A and Europe, we want to recognize some of the common mistakes made with this sort of relationship. Because our points of comparison here are themselves able to change, we can’t say anything about the absolute values of either country’s per capita GDP. It might appear that Country A is wealthier than it was 10 years ago, but at this point in the argument, we can’t say this for sure. Perhaps Country A is exactly the same and Europe is $1000 poorer. Or perhaps both are poorer. Maybe Europe is $3000 poorer and Country A is merely $2000 poorer. This would give us the same change in comparative value. Because we can’t establish either country’s actual GDP to a firm number, both economic blocs could have moved in either direction on the GDP spectrum. While the argument won’t necessarily develop in a way that utilizes this, it is highly probable that it will and we should learn to recognize the nuances of this sort of relationship.
We now see the payoff in the reference to “a rising per capita GDP.” As already discussed, the information provided can not establish a rising GDP. So this sets up a huge gap in this argument. We can accept as a premise that rising GDP indicates rising standard of living, just not that a rising GDP has necessarily occurred.
The conclusion is in the second part of the final sentence: “the average standard of living in Country A must have risen . . . .”
Given the analysis here, we are probably expecting an answer which will somehow address the identified gap. There may be a lot of clever ways to do this, though, so we should evaluate each answer closely to see if it works.
Answer Choice (A) No. We don’t care about increases in population. Nothing concerning the population size needs to be true. Per capita GDP is totally unrelated to population size. Population is how many people there are. Per capita GDP is, basically, how much money those people make, on average. It can rise and fall totally independent of population. This is a popular wrong answer choice, though. If you chose this, it may be worth brushing up on some basic economic terminologies. The LSAT uses these sorts of subjects a lot, and having a basic familiarity is quite helpful on questions like this one.
Answer Choice (B) This might actually hurt this argument because it indicates to us that the stats about Europe are more flexible than this argument seems to presume. If Europe’s standard of living fell, this indicates its GDP may have fallen as well, which could explain the increase in the larger GDP gap without the need for Country A’s GDP to have risen. More to the point, though, is just that the two numbers are completely independent of one another. All we know is the difference between them. Either can rise, fall, or stay the same so long as the other moves appropriately to match it.
Answer Choice (C) This doesn’t have to be true. Europe is a big, dynamic economic bloc so it wouldn’t be surprising if this were true. But it just doesn’t matter. We’re saying Country A has had a higher GDP than Europe as a whole. Whatever is going on within Europe to create its economic situation as a whole is none of our concern.
Correct Answer Choice (D) This looks good. This means that at least some of the $1,000 increase in relative GDP came from growth in Country A. Maybe the entire $1,000, or maybe just $1, but this ensures that the GDP of Country A did, in fact, grow from 1980 to 1990.
Let’s negate to test it out. If Europe’s per capita GDP was $60,000 in 1980 and dropped by $1,001, that means its per capita GDP is $58,999 in 1990. From these numbers, we can calculate Country A’s stats. We are +$5,000 on Europe in 1980, and +$6000 in 1990. Did our GDP grow? No. It would have gone from $65,000 in 1980 to $64,999 in 1990. $64,999 is less than $65,000. So this answer has eliminated a contingency that must not occur if our conclusion is to follow.
Answer Choice (E) No, this is similar to Answer Choice C. Europe is a big, dynamic economy and we are only addressing the average of the whole. Any individual member could totally be way bigger than Country A, so long as the average of all members is less.