LSAT 131 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q22

LR Question 22 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: A recent study confirms that nutritious breakfasts make

QUESTION TYPE: Strengthen

CONCLUSION: A new study shows that nutritious breakfasts improve worker productivity.

REASONING: For one month, plant A’s workers got free, nutritious breakfasts. Plant B’s workers didn’t.

ANALYSIS: This is a classic LSAT error: an incomplete comparison. This tells us what workers at plant A had access to, but it doesn’t tell us whether workers at plant B ate! The argument incorrectly equates lack of a free breakfast with not eating breakfast.

But the workers at plant B might have just eaten at home! To strengthen this argument we should show that plant B’s workers didn’t eat nutritious breakfasts.

I found all the wrong answers incredibly frustrating, as they are very wrong. The point is that the productivity of Plant A increased. With that in mind, it doesn’t matter:

• Whether the plants had the same productivity at the start.
• Whether there were any other differences between the plants.

Studies rarely examine identical circumstances. The point is that A’s productivity went up, and B’s didn’t.

___________

1. CORRECT. This shows that there was a real difference between what workers at plant A and plant B ate for breakfast.
    
   (Assuming, of course, that workers at plant A ate the free breakfast. But this answer is fine without that part: this is just a strengthen question, not a sufficient assumption question.)
2. The point was that plant A’s productivity increased after the change. The two plants don’t have to be identical!
3. This is a very tempting trap answer. It’s like B: we don’t care about the starting point. We only care about the change in A after the change in conditions.
   Imagine in the prior month, A had productivity of 50, and B had productivity of 100. But after breakfast, A had productivity of 100, too. Breakfast would seem significant, right?
4. This doesn’t tell us much. We don’t know whether this was a change during the month, or whether this was always true.
5. This doesn’t matter. What matters is the change in productivity.