Q18 - Decentralization enables divisions of large

[mmk33]

The key to eliminating (B) and correctly choosing (A) is the word "more" in the second sentence. In decentralized large institutions it is ALWAYS the case that MORE realistic planning is permitted (the word "more" draws a comparison between decentralized and centralized). By comparison, saying that large decentralized institutions "strongly encourage innovation" tells us nothing how innovation is encouraged in large centralized institutions. For all we know they always strongly encourage it.

p.s.--I also got this question wrong when I PTed (chose D).

[zainrizvi]

Got the right answer as it was the most supported out of the pack, but I'm confused how "enabling" something leads us to conclude decentralization -> function autonomously.. can't you enable something without necessarily having it?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Good question! There are a ton of things that happen on the LSAT that I can't really explain, but have learned to jump through the hoop, as if this were a "dog and pony show." When they use "enables" they mean "sufficient." We see it in a lot of LR arguments, and in the question stem when they imply "sufficient assumption."

Sorry if that's not a very satisfying answer, but the vagueness of language sometimes can only be determined by convention - and the LSAT is very consistent on it's use of the word "enables."

[seychelles1718]

So the "more" in the second sentence is really what makes the whole difference between valid inference and illegal negation? If it instead said "This always permits realistic planning...", instead of "more realistic planning...", then is (A) illega negation?

On the other hand, my original justification for (A) was: regardless of the presence of the "more", I think both "enable" and "permit" indicates causation, which should be diagrammed as a biconditional (when there is the cause, there is the effect and the cause is also necessary for the effect to happen). If we diagram the second sentence as a biconditonal, (A) is not an illegal negation.

[NatalieC941]

The first sentence says Decentralization --> Function Autonom
Doesn't the 2nd sentence say: Func Auto--> permits more realistic planning & strongly encourages innovation ??

No, you're right. Thank you! I think I went through that too quickly as I set that up. I'll edit my post above in a few days so as not to confuse anyone.

Was this edited or not? Right now the original post by Manhattan doesn't make sense - I think it is confusing centralization with decentralization in the second sentence. Can someone confirm this?


If so, I still don't completely understand how A can be arrived at?

Can possibly someone streamline this so that I can understand the flow? Ie. What is the best way to even approach this question?

[andrewgong01]

The first sentence says Decentralization --> Function Autonom
Doesn't the 2nd sentence say: Func Auto--> permits more realistic planning & strongly encourages innovation ??

No, you're right. Thank you! I think I went through that too quickly as I set that up. I'll edit my post above in a few days so as not to confuse anyone.

Was this edited or not? Right now the original post by Manhattan doesn't make sense - I think it is confusing centralization with decentralization in the second sentence. Can someone confirm this?


If so, I still don't completely understand how A can be arrived at?

Can possibly someone streamline this so that I can understand the flow? Ie. What is the best way to even approach this question?

The quoted text is correct I think that's what I have it down (quoted text= now blue). It is "A" because the stimulus said that decentralization leads you to function autonomously (first sentence). Then, the second sentence allows us to say that the ability to function autonomously will ALWAYS lead to more realistic planing. Because it is really strong in saying that it (autonomous functioning) ALWAYS leads to MORE realistic planing we can infer that the moment a company becomes autonomous it has to lead to more realistic planing.

Choice "A" plays on this fact .

The company is currently not autonomous yet. However, once the company does become autonomous we know that realistic planing must improve. In turn , this means that there is room for the current company in question to improve realistic planing because should the company adopt the autonomous thing we know for a fact that realistic planing must increase. Therefore, realistic planing is currently not maximized because of the possibility to further increase it by adopting the autonomous stuff.

My approach to the problem was looking for overlap between the subjects in the different sentences and see if sentences can combine due to different relations (e.g. a casual relation). In this case the correct answer choice only required combining the first two sentences to see the overlap between autonomous and realistic planing. My prephrase included decentralized too where I thought the flow would have been about a company that plans on being decentralized and the effect of it where the effect is given in the remaining two sentences.

[ohthatpatrick]

This is definitely a doozy of a problem. I was doing this with a 165+ tutoring student the other day, and he got so frustrated with it, he threw down his pen and was ready to quit.

We try to read Inference with an eye for chains of Causality or for Conditional Logic statements we could chain together or apply to specific facts.

Other times, though, the correct answer is sort of a "what's the gist" or "solve the mystery".

In this case, it's not really either of those. The first two ideas DO chain together.

IF we decentralize -> function auto --> permits more realistic planning (etc.)

We have a 2nd conditional that says

IF we decentralize -> central admin can focus on big picture stuff

Those wouldn't chain together and we don't have any facts to which we could apply them.

When you have two rules with the same trigger, f.e.,
A --> B
A --> C
then you CAN infer that there's some overlap between B and C (assuming that we know that A actually happens at least sometimes).

So we could possibly predict some answer like
"some actions that allow central admin to focus on the big stuff also allow for more realistic planning", or some such B.S.

No one would be able to predict the correct answer here. We're just thinking flexibly as we read it, "COULD I prove this from the available info?"

Do I know anything about "large institutions whose divisions do not function autonomously?"

Yes, I know they have not decentralized yet.

If I know that you haven't decentralized, do I know that "planning is not maximally realistic"?

Yes! If we WERE to decentralize, it would ALWAYS permit MORE realistic planning.

So if we're living in a pre-decentralized era, then there's no way that we've maxed out realistic planning.

It feels like an illegal negation, but it isn't.

An illegal negation would be
"If you haven't decentralized, then it's IMPERMISSIBLE for you to have more realistic planning."

Super tricky answer you wouldn't be able to predict. We just have to ask ourselves, "Can I support this? What do I know about these terms/ideas?"

[QIAOH648]

I couldn't understand the correct answer. Can anyone help explain each answer because I would like to know why the correct answer is right and wrong answers are wrong.

Thank you

[smiller]

Question Type:
Inference

Stimulus Breakdown:
We're given several facts about the effects of decentralization. The first sentence states that decentralization enables large institutions to function autonomously. The word "always" in the second sentence indicates that it's a conditional statement. "This" in the second sentence refers most directly to a large institution functioning autonomously. The most definite conditional link is between a large institution functioning autonomously and the necessary conditions of the second sentence:

large institution functioning autonomously ⟶ more realistic planning permitted AND innovation strongly encouraged

In addition to the conditional logic, it's useful to notice that the second sentence describes "more" realistic planning. This indicates that a comparison is being made between institutions that function autonomously and those that do not function autonomously: those that function autonomously are able to plan more realistically.

Answer Anticipation:
The question stem asks for the answer that is most strongly supported, not an answer that is guaranteed. It will be useful to identify wrong answers by looking for statements that are not clearly supported.

Correct answer:
(A)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) As noted above, the word "more" in the second sentence indicates a comparison. If large institutions functioning autonomously are able to plan more realistically than those that don't function autonomously, planning at the latter institutions is not maximally realistic.

(B) The wording in the second sentence makes this tricky. The comparison between institutions that function autonomously and those that do not, indicated by the word "more," doesn't extend past the word "and." If we remove everything between "always" and "strongly," the statement after the "and" still stands on its own: "This always strongly encourages innovation,..." So, we're told that functioning autonomously strongly encourages innovation, but we don't know how innovation is affected by not functioning autonomously. The comparison in the earlier part of the sentence is not being applied to innovation.

(C) The paragraph describes advantages of decentralization, but we aren't given any information about disadvantages.

(D) We know that central administrations can be overwhelmed by the details of daily operations. This does not mean that they are "usually" responsible for "most" of the details. Even if they are usually responsible, we aren’t told whether or not they are "partially" responsible.

(E) The statement in the second sentence about people directly involved in implementing policies applies to large institutions that function autonomously. We don't know if this "always" applies to those people. It's possible that people in centralized institutions are not able to make innovative and realistic policy decisions.

Takeaway/Pattern:
Difficult LR questions like this one often test our ability to read closely and carefully. The ability to choose between a correct answer and a tempting incorrect answer may depend on noticing exactly what is stated in the stimulus, and what isn't.

#officialexplanation

[BensonC202]

These questions on PT 45 were crazy! I thought I killed it on this second section. I thought wrong! haha

Thanks for the info. on relative comparison Matt. Learn something new about the LSAT everyday. I kept wanting A to say "Planning is no always maximally realistic" But I can see in the discussion of relative statements that this now makes sense.

allow me to share my humble 2 cents here.

I believe that one of the most abstracted idea here lies in the second sentence of the stimulus that A ( Decentralization -> autonomously ) always permits more Bs ( realistic planning ) and Cs ( strongly encourages innovation ).

I interpret this premise mathematically that if Bn+1 > Bn and Cn+1 > Cn, then it must be true that A always permits the positive value of both ( Bn+1 - Bn ) and ( Cn+1 - Cn ).

Example: Antetokounmpo's interior dominance always permits more scoring chances for his teammates and better implementing play instructions from coach.

It does not mean Giannis's interior dominance sufficiently guarantee his teammate truly score and instructions of play indeed be implemented; instead, it means that if the degree of the concepts leveled up, there must be a trigger always enables it.

Go back to the original premise, if we presume that A sufficiently guarantee Bn+ 1 always > Bn and Cn+1 always > Cn, them we must also presume both the value of Bn and Cn exists and is positive. However, then, we must also assume that large institutions " do " have people who responsible for decision making are directly involved in implementing the policy they design. Yet, we would never know whether A ( decentralization enables divisions of a large institution to function autonomously ) always have those people " more likely " directly involved than large institution does or whether the existence of A leads to the existence of those people. Perhaps in large institutions, we do not have anyone being directly involved in implementing the policy they design.

Someone might say, regardless the real value of Bn and Cn, if n = 0, would not Bn + 1 and Cn+1 always > Bn & Cn ? Then we still need to make sure that if N = 0, Bn is a real number, which is to say, Bn must exist and can't be negative.

Answer A: If ~ A, then the value of B is not maximum. if under the condition of Y, A does not permit the positive value of both (By+1 - By ) and ( Cy+1 - Cy ), then it must be true that the value of both ( Bn+1 - Bn ) and ( Cn+1 - Cn ) permanently > ( By+1 - By ) and ( Cy+1 - Cy ). Then we know, whether or not the value of Bn is the maximum value of B, as long as the it > it of By, it must be true that By does not have any chances to be the maximum value of B.

In terms of Answer D, we have to go into the discussion of the last sentence of the stimulus.

Decentralization also permits central administration to focus on institutional-wide issues without being overwhelmed by the details of daily operations. we can actually interpret as - if central administration can focus on institutional - wide issues without being overwhelmed by the details of daily operations, it must be true that decentralization permits that phenomenon.

The core of the sentence could be interpreted as that the phenomenon of one performs the action without the interference from the consequences of one performs B only if decentralization happens.

Apparently, no way can we infer the quantities of how much one should be responsible of performing B and of B that one needs to perform.

Thats why we can eliminate Answer D due to 2 reasons. 1. " Partially responsible " and 2. " Most of the details of daily operations "


Please let me know if you do have any questions, and any critics are highly appreciated, since we all want to be better by improving ourselves.