LSAT 123 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q1

LR Question 1 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Economist: Every business strives to increase its productivity…

QUESTION TYPE: Identify the Conclusion

CONCLUSION: Not all efforts to increase productivity help the business, overall.

REASONING: Sometimes, companies fire workers to increase productivity. This hurts morale, and hurts the workers who were fired.

ANALYSIS: The word “but” is very important. It indicates the author’s opinion, which is usually the conclusion. And then the final sentence is an example supporting this conclusion. If productivity hurts morale, then that could hurt the overall business. (Every business needs morale)

So an argument structure goes:

• Statement
• But….(conclusion disagreeing with statement)
• Often….(example support conclusion)

___________

1. This is not only not the conclusion, it’s also insane. On the LSAT, you have to take statements literally. That means the author would agree with them even in an extreme case. This answer taken to the extreme, is absurd.
    
   Example of statement: This action saved the company and will earn the company 1 trillion in profits. But, the action failed to help employees. So the action is not good for the business.
2. CORRECT. This matches the conclusion. Note that “But not all….are beneficial” = “some measures….fail”. (i.e. “some are not”
3. The author didn’t say this. It’s an extreme statement. It’s possible the author might think that in some cases the interests of owners and employees coincide.
4. This repeats the first part of the first sentence, except it phrases it as a double negative. So this is something that’s in the argument. It’s not the conclusion. It’s just a fact providing context.
5. This is a fact supporting the conclusion. The conclusion follows from this: and therefore some productivity efforts may not help the business overall.