Q22 - A recent study confirms that nutritious breakfasts

[DPCTE4325]

The quickest way to dismiss (C) is just thinking yourself:
Relative vs. Absolute

We don't care how Plant A and B compare in absolute terms.

The curious fact is just about why Plant A increased during the the month in question,
whereas Plant B did not.

It doesn't matter whether, at the beginning of the month, Plant A was more productive / less productive / equally productive in comparison to Plant B.

This argument only cares about
Plant A beginning of month vs. end of month
and
Plant B beginning of month vs. end of month

You wouldn't be able to turn (C) into "no cause, no effect", because how you do you know whether or not there was "no effect"?

You know that the cause was absent (i.e. Plant A was not giving out free nutritious breakfasts before this study), but how do you know if the effect was absent? Maybe Plant A did still increase its productivity that month.

It could be like this

2 months ago:
A < B

1 month ago
A = B

This month
A > B

Maybe Plant A has been improving for months, it finally tied Plant B in the month before the study, and now apparently has surpassed Plant B.

That could actually WEAKEN the idea that the breakfast was the causal difference maker (because Plant A's productivity was already increasing before the free breakfast arrived).

Meanwhile, (A) gives us "no cause, no effect", because it lets us know that for Plant B,
(most) did not have nutritious breakfast, and productivity did not increase.

Thank you so much for this! I see why C is wrong. Regarding A, I actually eliminated it because it said "few" and therefore it's not entirely NO cause? Doesn't few mean appx. 3?

Was it wrong for me to interpret A as "some cause, no effect?"

[ohthatpatrick]

I think you're confusing "few", which means "less than half", with "a few", which means "3-ish".

Few NFL players are women.
Few human beings live on Mars.

These are true statements, because "few" has a ceiling but no basement.

The three negative translations you make on LSAT are
No A's are B's = All A's are ~B's
Few A's are B's = Most A's are ~B's
Not all A's are B's = Some A's are ~B's

You'd read (A) as "most workers in B did not consume nutritious breakfasts during that month".

It sounds also like you're thinking of "no cause, no effect" as a binary idea. "Less cause, less effect" / "more cause, more effect" ... these are all covariation strengtheners. You don't want to get rid of a Str / Weak answer because it fails some purity test.

The impact of (A) is that we know that everyone in Plant A was getting good breakfasts and most, if not all, of the people in B were not getting good breakfasts. Knowing this significant difference between the two groups is essential in order for nutritious breakfasts to be a possible causal explanation for why there was a difference in productivity improvement.