Q22 - From 1996 to 2004, the average family income

[hannnn.wang]

Hi all,

I spent a considerable amount of time trying to decide between answer A and answer E. (E) makes sense since if the biggest decrease wasn't a result of the accused party's policy, it's possible that the accused party managed well while the decrease was only too huge for them to make up for.

The more I look at this, the more I think of (E) as the only answer. But is there a way to eliminate (A) immediately? My initial thought on (A) was that since there was a rise in income in 1996, this shows the former ruling party didn't mess up all the way and that weakens the attack on mismanagement, although now (A) seems entirely irrelevant. Nevertheless, since sometimes LSAT has weird answers, I'd like to hear more thoughts on how to eliminate (A).

Thanks!

[vladshafran]

Hey!

Our conclusion is that "political party's mismanagement caused the decrease of average family income by 10 percent."

We are asked to pick the answer that does NOT directly counter this claim.

E states that the greatest decreases during this time resulted from policies of a party before 1996 - meaning it were the policies enacted by a party other than the one the claim is about. This tells us that maybe the decrease of 10% is the fault of the party before 1996, NOT the party that came into power after 1996 which our conclusion and claim talks about.

A states that there had been a rise in family income in 1996, but this does not tell us much about the whole situation over the ten year span. What if in 1996, during the first year of the party, there was a 0.001% increase in income. Then, in 1997, the party starts enacting policies and the family income starts decreasing every year. As you can see A does not directly counter the claim.

[ohthatpatrick]

Great response, thanks! Here's an official run-down.

Question Type: Weaken EXCEPT

ARGUMENT CORE
evidence
1996 - 2004: avg family income decreased by 10%

conclusion
Ruling party did it.

ANALYSIS
This seems like a straightforward LSAT setup. Phenomenon happened. Conclusion offers a causal explanation.

With causal explanations, there are two pressure points:
1. Plausibility of author's explanation
2. Possibility of alternative explanations

#1 could sound like (Ruling party enacted no laws affecting economic policy)

#2 could sound like (during this time, massive snowstorms forced many businesses to close for long periods of time, forcing many businesses and workers to lose revenue and wages)

ANSWER CHOICES

(A) Hmm. Doesn't seem like a different reason for the decline. Keep it.

(B) Different reason -- change in family values, and more parents chose to stay at home with kids and accept lower household income

(C) Different reason -- int'l stuff hurt the economy

(D) Different reason -- demographic shift to more younger, poorly paid workers

(E) Different reason -- economic declines REALLY caused by the policies of the opposition policy enacted right before 1996

The correct answer is (A).

I think the original poster was sympathetic to (A) because you will sometimes see LSAT explain away a % change by saying "the PREVIOUS period was the anomaly ... this % change was just a return to normal ... thus no explanation/blame/credit needed".

But this answer choice doesn't have language that allows us to use that "ATYPICAL before, regression to the mean after" type of alternative explanation.

[wooviiran]

Great response, thanks! Here's an official run-down.

Question Type: Weaken EXCEPT

ARGUMENT CORE
evidence
1996 - 2004: avg family income decreased by 10%

conclusion
Ruling party did it.

ANALYSIS
This seems like a straightforward LSAT setup. Phenomenon happened. Conclusion offers a causal explanation.

With causal explanations, there are two pressure points:
1. Plausibility of author's explanation
2. Possibility of alternative explanations

#1 could sound like (Ruling party enacted no laws affecting economic policy)

#2 could sound like (during this time, massive snowstorms forced many businesses to close for long periods of time, forcing many businesses and workers to lose revenue and wages)

ANSWER CHOICES

(A) Hmm. Doesn't seem like a different reason for the decline. Keep it.

(B) Different reason -- change in family values, and more parents chose to stay at home with kids and accept lower household income

(C) Different reason -- int'l stuff hurt the economy

(D) Different reason -- demographic shift to more younger, poorly paid workers

(E) Different reason -- economic declines REALLY caused by the policies of the opposition policy enacted right before 1996

The correct answer is (A).

I think the original poster was sympathetic to (A) because you will sometimes see LSAT explain away a % change by saying "the PREVIOUS period was the anomaly ... this % change was just a return to normal ... thus no explanation/blame/credit needed".

But this answer choice doesn't have language that allows us to use that "ATYPICAL before, regression to the mean after" type of alternative explanation.

But in what way does E indicates that the policy was indeed enacted BY the opposition party? Original answer choice reads "The biggest decrease in family income resulted from polices enacted before the ruling party came to power in 1996." I'm seriously confused.

[andrewgong01]

Here's my confusion on ruling out "E" as a valid counter

For "E" we are requiring a few assumptions.

Yes, it is true that the opposing party may have implemented some policy that caused a MASSIVE decrease in family income (e.g. uncontrolled fiscal spending plunging the nation into huge debt causing interest rates to sky rocket) in say 1995. However, to me that is not a good counter to saying "sorry, it is not my party's fault because the previous party in 1995 passed a 'stupid' economic policy.

However, that itself does not seem like a strong counter because the stimulus tells us the decrease occured over a period of 8 years until 2004. If that is the case, couldn't the current governing party still be blamed for their bad econ policies because, for example, they could have passed policies to reverse the bad economic policies? Maybe the party from 1996 to 2004 passed bad economic policies too like capital control. Put differently, even though the previous party may have screwed over the economy, over 8 years from 1996 to 2004 the governing party can still pass 'bad' economic policies such as implementing capital controls.

For "E" to work as a valid objection it seems to require the assumption that the bad policies from 1995 would have to be so bad that no matter what the governing party did between 1996 and 2004 nothing can reverse the trend, which seems like a strong assumption. Put differently, Couldn't the governing party just reversed the policy? How do we know the legacy of the bad econ policy would have carried over after 1995.... By choosing "E" it just seems to require us to assume that the policies from pre 1996 are so bad that we can not blame the governing party that had 8 years to fix the issue but instead over the 8 years the economic conditions worsened?


The reason why I think "A" is not a counter is this hypothetical: For some reason in 1996 there was a sudden increase in income that pushed the economy into a sudden boom and over drive beyond its natural rate. Then after that the economy returned to its natural rate and hence you get a drop of 10% because the drop is merely bringing the economy back its natural equilibrium level and hence there would be a recorded drop but the drop is from an unnaturally high rate to a lower rate so by bringing it down to the lower rate it is not "Bad" econ policies; it is just natural economic forces at work. This obviosuly requires assumptions too as the previous poster said what if the increase in 1996 was just like 0.001%. However, at the same time, I feel that "E" requires assumptions too...

[krisk743]

A - if there was a rise in 1996, then it makes it more believable that the mismanagement of the economy by the party is what began to bring it down.


That essentially boosts the argument, only thing that doesn't counter it. Don't know how no one else brought that up.