LSAT 157 | Section 3 | Logical Reasoning: Q5

LR Question 5 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Taylorism, the early-twentieth-century industrial efficiency…

QUESTION TYPE: Principle

CONCLUSION: Taylorism improved standards of living for workers, but tended to rob work of its intrinsic value.

REASONING: Taylor’s methods increased productivity and thus standard of living, but also reduced the value of creativity and talent by making work more routine.

ANALYSIS: The generalization that applies to this will be some form of “a method can improve workers’ standard of living while reducing the intrinsic value of their work”. It won’t be exactly this, but will be something along these lines.

___________

1. Taylor’s methods aren’t decreasing efficiency, so this generalization is not actually true here.
2. CORRECT. Taylor’s methods are helping workers financially, but reducing the intrinsic value of their work (making it less rewarding).
3. We don’t know that workers are putting in less effort, so can’t say this is true.
4. We don’t know that a higher standard of living is likely to mean workers don’t value their jobs. We know only that they’re correlated in this case.
5. This doesn’t illustrate that more creative workers are less efficient. We see that work that is more efficient seems to be less creative in this case.

Recap: The question begins with “Taylorism, the early-twentieth-century industrial efficiency”. It is a Principle question. Learn how to master LSAT Principle questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.