Q21

 
pinkdatura
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PT54, S1, Q21

by pinkdatura Mon Oct 04, 2010 10:49 pm

This passage is truly a catastrophe for me. I was bogged with details, especially low cohesion group and group-thinking, in my opinion, they both seem have involuntary compliance (line6 and line39, line49-48)
I had difficulty in categorizing the situation described in stimulus into low cohesion or groupthinking.
for C, some explanation I read suggests "disagreement over conflicting alternative" is expression of low-cohesion group. But I think it is said when cohesion is low, there's compliance out of fear, then how come there are so many conflicting opinions in such group?How exactly we come to conclusion that this group is low cohesion group?
 
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Re: PT54, S1, Q21

by giladedelman Tue Oct 05, 2010 6:49 pm

Ah! You're right! The passage does say that low-cohesion groups and groupthink groups tend to suppress disagreement, but for different reasons: fear on the one hand, lack of scrutiny on the other.

But answer (C) doesn't say that this is a low-cohesion group; it just says that there's no evidence that groupthink played a role in the decision. This is a valid inference, because the author says that groupthink leads to a lack of disagreement; this scenario features "meetings marked by disagreement over conflicting alternatives." So the author wouldn't see this as a case of groupthink.


(A) is incorrect because we have no idea whether this is evidence of chronic indecision. All we know is that the colleagues disagreed in this case.

(B) is a contradictory interpretation; the author would not call this a groupthink scenario.

(D) is contradictory for the same reason.

(E) is out of scope. We don't really know what the author would say about them studying the information more thoroughly.

Does that make sense to you?
 
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Re: Q21

by JakeY236 Thu Aug 24, 2017 8:26 am



I picked A, and still don't see how it doesn't work. The question reads "A group of closely associated colleagues has made a disastrous diplomatic decision after a serious of meetings marked by disagreement over conflicting alternatives." I took "a serious of meetings" as "evidence of chronic indecision" and " disagreement over conflicting alternatives" as "a weak level of cohesion in general". I thought the LSAT allows us to assume synonymous meanings in cases where phrases are essentially saying the same thing?
 
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Re: Q21

by KenM242 Thu Jan 18, 2018 8:06 am

for (A),

i think the keyword is 'chronic indecision', with emphasis on [indecision].

First of all, the word sounds like some kind of medical terminology which made me go 'what is this high-tech word? i don't know what it is and it was not mentioned in the passage' and i crossed it out.

When I came back to review it, however, I actually got stuck on it wondering the same thing as you were.

However, the assholes in the question stem were NOT unable to make a decision. They just wanted to have it their own ways. 'Indecision' is a wrong term to describe their state.
 
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Re: Q21

by AlisaS425 Thu May 14, 2020 11:49 pm

I was also tempted by (A).

At first I thought (A) was tempting, partly because I thought "low-cohesiveness" means "disagreements towards others' opinion / having varied viewpoints" (Hope I'm not the only one who reads the passage in this way :lol: )

But after several times of reading this passage, I started to understand that non/low-cohesiveness actually means that people in this group would hardly present their own thoughts due to fear of recrimination (lines 5-7). If so, then I guess we wouldn't see much "disagreement" in such a low-cohesiveness group.

Moving to Q21. The question stem provides us with a scenario where the group had disagreement over conflicting alternatives. This doesn't seem like a group with low cohesiveness (the reason as suggested above). So (A) "...indicating a weak level of cohesion (=low cohesiveness?)" doesn't seem to be correct.

Also, the word "chronic indecision" also seems to be a red flag. Nowhere does the passage suggest "chronic indecision", so we wouldn't know the author's view towards "chronic indecision".

Any thoughts?
 
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Re: Q21

by GolddiggerF208 Fri Apr 01, 2022 12:08 am

My two cents: Cohesiveness of the decision-making is essential for groupthink syndrome (line 50-55). This is a conditional logic: groupthink → cohesiveness (~cohesiveness → ~groupthink). In the scenario at issue, the members disagree with each other. This is noncohesiveness (line 1-5) so that there is no groupthink syndrome. That's exactly what C is.