Q7 - In 1955, legislation in

[john]

7. (A)
Question type: Weaken the conclusion

The core argument’s main premise is that the likelihood of serious injury in high-risk workplaces has declined since 1955, when safety legislation was passed. It concludes that the legislation caused the decline. We can weaken this connection by suggesting alternative explanations for the decline. For instance, if technological change means that workers have less direct contact with dangerous machinery than they did in 1955, that suggests that technological change, not legislation, caused the decline in injuries.

(B) is irrelevant because it focuses on causes of injury before 1955, not the period we’re concerned with.
(C) might sound at first like it weakens the conclusion, because it shows that the legislation did not in fact prevent injuries. But we have to take the premise of the argument as given; even if the absolute number of injuries has increased, the likelihood has diminished, and it’s the latter fact that we’re concerned with explaining.
(D) is irrelevant because it deals with workplaces that are not high-risk.
(E) is irrelevant; whatever the cause of improvement in other workplaces (which might also have been affected by legislation), we want to know solely about high-risk workplaces.


#officialexplanation

[r1r200]

I got this one right, but was wondering why C cannot be the right answer as well?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Answer choice (C) is wrong for two reasons...

First, it doesn't weaken the conclusion about high-risk industry work-related injuries because the conclusion is about the likelihood that a worker will be involved in an accident, whereas answer choice (C) is about the number of accidents. This is constant game on the LSAT - playing with a percentage vs. an amount.

Second, because the answer choice addresses work-related injuries overall. The possibility within answer choice (C) that the increase in work-related injuries came from an increase in low-risk industries is another issue.

Does that answer your question?

[goriano]

7. (A)
Question type: Weaken the conclusion

The core argument’s main premise is that the likelihood of serious injury in high-risk workplaces has declined since 1955, when safety legislation was passed. It concludes that the legislation caused the decline. We can weaken this connection by suggesting alternative explanations for the decline. For instance, if technological change means that workers have less direct contact with dangerous machinery than they did in 1955, that suggests that technological change, not legislation, caused the decline in injuries.

(B) is irrelevant because it focuses on causes of injury before 1955, not the period we’re concerned with.
(C) might sound at first like it weakens the conclusion, because it shows that the legislation did not in fact prevent injuries. But we have to take the premise of the argument as given; even if the absolute number of injuries has increased, the likelihood has diminished, and it’s the latter fact that we’re concerned with explaining.
(D) is irrelevant because it deals with workplaces that are not high-risk.
(E) is irrelevant; whatever the cause of improvement in other workplaces (which might also have been affected by legislation), we want to know solely about high-risk workplaces.

I have a question about your explanation in (C). When I first read the stimulus, I noticed the shift from "likelihood of serious injury" in the premise to "overall worker safety" in the conclusion. To me, "overall" seems to mean absolute numbers, not likelihood. So I was wondering if you could explain how you knew the conclusion was still referring to likelihood. Is it just because of the question type? Because I can see the same stimulus appearing in a flaw question and the correct answer choice highlighting this subtle scope shift.

[ohthatpatrick]

Let me try to answer for the previous poster, although he's welcome to give his own take on your question.

I see what you mean about the scope shift from "likelihood of injury" to "overall worker safety", but I think that both of those ideas would still refer to %'s rather than #'s.

You're right that a flaw question would be apt to pounce on the overly generalized conclusion. After all, "likelihood of injury" is just one component of "overall safety". We shouldn't equate them.

But the difference is one of part to whole, not % vs. #

When we refer to general qualities like, "which is safer, town A or town B?", do you think we'd best answer that question by looking at the absolute # of crimes or by looking at the per capita crime rate?

Maybe only 1% of Minneapolis residents have ever been involved in a crime whereas 10% of Smallville's residents have been. It seems like Minneapolis is the safer town (even if it's true that there were 1000 crimes in Minneapolis and only 500 in Smallville).

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have further questions.

[ericha3535]

Wait a second,

I am so confused...

Ok, are you guys saying that the statement before the last sentence is the conclusion?

Isn't the conclusion stated at the last, saying that the overall worker safety within high risk industries?

I thought the answer was D.

This argument definitely had a causal conclusion, saying that the legislation is what "caused" the decrease in accidents.
That's why it's A: it provides an alternative cause.

At the same time, I thought, the problem with this argument was the shift in scope: it says something about "decrease in the likelihood of getting high risk injuries" then to conclude about "overall."

Thus, I chose D: even if the % of high risk injuries went down, if there are way more non high injuries went up, doesn't that hurt the argument about "overall?"

PS

Wait... is both C and D are wrong because it talks about raw number whereas the argument is about %?
In order for those answers to be right, they require additional assumptions such as that the number of workers stayed the same as before or something like that?

[Nina]

i understand that A is an apparent correct answer, but i still think B is also on the right track in regards of providing an alternative cause: if the injuries before 1955 was largely due to workers' carelessness, then the decrease of injury likelihood could due to workers' increase of carefulness, instead of the effect of legislation. Does it also make sense?

Thanks for help!

[sumukh09]

i understand that A is an apparent correct answer, but i still think B is also on the right track in regards of providing an alternative cause: if the injuries before 1955 was largely due to workers' carelessness, then the decrease of injury likelihood could due to workers' increase of carefulness, instead of the effect of legislation. Does it also make sense?

Thanks for help!

Makes sense but it's highly unlikely that that would be the case. In effect what you're arguing strengthens the argument because an increase in worker carefulness coincided with the implementation of legislation, so it's more likely that the legislation is what impacted the decrease in worker injuries than an increase in worker carefulness. Also, any time you have to make these additional assumptions to justify an answer choice it is generally incorrect. With answer choice A we don't have to make any assumptions as it provides us with an alternative explanation for why worker injuries decreased ie) technological innovation

[cobyerez79]

Can someone please explain why B is wrong?
If most of the injuries were the result of carelessness that opens the possibility that it's not the legislation that caused a decrease in injuries rather it was caused by less carelessness?
Thanks

[amil91]

Wait a second,

I am so confused...

Ok, are you guys saying that the statement before the last sentence is the conclusion?

Isn't the conclusion stated at the last, saying that the overall worker safety within high risk industries?

I thought the answer was D.

This argument definitely had a causal conclusion, saying that the legislation is what "caused" the decrease in accidents.
That's why it's A: it provides an alternative cause.

At the same time, I thought, the problem with this argument was the shift in scope: it says something about "decrease in the likelihood of getting high risk injuries" then to conclude about "overall."

Thus, I chose D: even if the % of high risk injuries went down, if there are way more non high injuries went up, doesn't that hurt the argument about "overall?"

PS

Wait... is both C and D are wrong because it talks about raw number whereas the argument is about %?
In order for those answers to be right, they require additional assumptions such as that the number of workers stayed the same as before or something like that?

I think you are missing something in the stimulus. The stimulus talks about 'high-risk industries' not high risk injuries. So any information about industries not considered high-risk is irrelevant.

Can someone please explain why B is wrong?
If most of the injuries were the result of carelessness that opens the possibility that it's not the legislation that caused a decrease in injuries rather it was caused by less carelessness?
Thanks

I don't mean to be rude, but did you read the post above? It answers your question.

I'll add to it an say we really don't care about what happened with injuries before 1955, the legislation didn't exist until 1955.

[ohthatpatrick]

Just to clarify a couple questions here ...

For the poster tempted by (D), the conclusion IS the last sentence. However, the shift to "overall" doesn't take us from high-risk industry injuries to ALL injuries.

It actually takes us from INJURIES within high-risk industries to OVERALL WORKER SAFETY within high-risk industries.

So the injuries in low-risk industries are still out of scope. They have nothing to do with overall worker safety within high-risk industries.

And just to explain (B) with some new wording, I certainly see how (B) places an "alternate cause" idea in our brains. "oh, maybe the workers stopped being so careless!"

But the answer choice itself doesn't suggest that any change took place after 1955, nor does it give us any sense of what stimulated that change (it could have been the legislation).

If I say "most of the sunsets before 1955 were caused by the earth's rotation", that doesn't mean that post-1955 the sunsets were caused by something else.

If you compare the wording of (A) to that of (B), you can see that (A) actually gives us a change between before-1955 and after-1955. That's why it has much more explanatory power as an answer.

[lsat2016]

Hello,

Could you explain why answer choice E is incorrect?? Since the answer choice is broader in scope than specifically high-risk industries, shouldn't it weaken the argument??

[tommywallach]

See top-most post.

[CalebP488]

I'm also failing to see how E wouldn't weaken the argument. If workplace safety across all industries has increased consistently since 1955, when the legislation was passed, couldn't it be reasonably argued that it was not the legislation that made high-risk workplaces safer?

[mswang7]

Premises: 55 legislation increased control over workplace safety
In high risk industries, likelihood of serious injury has decreased since then
Concl: Legislation has increased overall safety within high risk industries

Leaps: Less likely for serious injury -> overall safety increased.
Look for something that has legislation but not increased safety

A. Unprotected interaction has decreased, giving an alternate reason that safety has increased
B. This would require a leap that workers have been more careful since 55
C. Conclusion discusses work in high risk industries
D. Again, out of scope like C
E. This would strengthen our argument