QUESTION TEXT: University administrator: Graduate students…
QUESTION TYPE: Weaken
CONCLUSION: We shouldn’t provide grad student teaching assistants with employee benefits.
REASONING: We’re only giving jobs to grad students so that they can pay for their degrees. There are no other reasons.
ANALYSIS: On a weaken question, you’re looking for a new fact that adds context to the argument, casting it into doubt.
The administrator has given just one reason not to pay teaching assistants more: the jobs are charity jobs intended to help them pay for degrees.
So the new fact will have to weaken this idea. As it happens, the right answer actually contradicts author on this point.
You may have heard you’re not allowed to contradict a premise. Bollocks, of course you’re allowed. It’s just rare. Prep companies tell you not to do it because most people try to do it on every question and they choose answers that don’t contradict anything. That’s a mistake. But if an answer actually contradicts a premise, it’s fine to pick.
___________
- Of course the administrator knows the extra costs. What kind of idiot would talk about an issue while ignorant of the facts?
This doesn’t mean they have an ulterior motive. - This doesn’t affect the argument. It doesn’t matter what pay adjuncts should receive. It only matters what pay teaching assistant should receive. This answer hasn’t shown adjunct pay is relevant to teaching assistant pay.
- CORRECT. This shows the administrator is wrong. There are other motives for hiring teaching assistants. In this case, the university wants to hire more of them to save money.
- “Funding education” usually includes living expenses. So the higher-than-tuition stipends may still be entirely intended to fund education.
- So? People don’t earn money merely for working hard. This doesn’t affect the administrator’s claim that the lack of employee benefits is justified because the jobs are charity jobs.
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das says
The is the only LR I got wrong on this PT. Blind Review didn’t help me either. I chose D. I also found the proof that stipends > education costs kind of dicey. But I can rationalize it as it still fitting the “We provide these jobs so people can afford to study here”. Even if you pay more than you need to study, your sole goal can be to provide certain students with enough money to be educated there. Just because TA pays above education costs doesn’t mean that those students could fund their education if TA positions were not offered. Can you let me know if I’m wrong in my thinking here.
To be honest I chose D because I was unfamiliar with the word stipend. I assumed that stipend was stuff like scholarship (which would destroy the argument). However, even if I were to know stipend was the word for these students pay from the school I’m still not sure I would have figured out C. The fact that it’s a proposal seems to weaken it significantly. The current reason to have TAs could be solely to fund their educations (whether or not the proposal goes through). This would mean that the admin wouldn’t be wrong until the proposal went through, and would never necessarily be wrong if the proposal was denied. I’m just really struggling to understand this as a ‘good’ answer. I know that’s vague, but can anyone explain it in another way.
Interestingly on 7Sage’s free marking tool this is one of two questions to receive a 180 75 percent mark – which is their way of estimating the curve. They found that to have a 75 percent chance of getting the question right you are a 180 scorer. There were only two questions with this dubious honor on the test (normally there is one or two). But more insanely it had a 174 50 percent mark which is the highest I’ve ever seen. That means that to have a 50/50 shot at this question you’re well into 99 percentile. I’m not sure that actually makes sense given their question breakdown (unless the people who use that site generally have like 85 percentile marks), but the fact that it’s the highest range requirement I’ve seen kind of shows just how hard people struggled with this.
FounderGraeme Blake says
Yes this is one of the hardest questions there is, I get asked about it often. And I think the subject matter is indeed part of it (stipend etc). Saw this question recently with a student who has labor law experience in a university context and they flew through it.
Anyway your reasoning is correct on stipends: they could be higher than tuition but designed to cover cost of living and other education costs.
As for the proposal, your reasoning is a nitpick. The fact that anyone at the university proposes more grad teaching assistants as a cost saving shows that the school is aware they will lower faculty costs. This in turn shows that current students are providing necessary labor and lowering faculty costs. The stipends are not merely for the grad students benefit but they also actively replace other workers.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.
Mikala Schecodnic says
In C, it says the University has “proposed” to replace the faculty in the interest of the economy. But this is not the same as saying their proposal was accepted, thus there is another purpose for the University having assistants. For all we know, the University administrator may have rejected this proposal saying that their sole purpose is to help Graduate students fund their education. I know this is bringing in an assumption which is normally discouraged, but I could argue that to say the extra stipend was for “living expenses” rather than a new car, or trip to the mall is also an assumption. In addition, to say “living expenses” are part of funding education would also be an assumption.
I still feel like D is more justified. If the sole -only- purpose is to help them fund their own education, then the fact that a majority earn more than what their education costs indicate that the money serves a purpose beyond affording tuition. If D was correct, then the Administrator’s argument would be weakened because the TA students would be more comparable to university employees, whose apparently are not created for the sole purpose of funding their education.
I find your website to be so helpful! I am hoping you could help me pinpoint where my logic is flawed.
Joy says
This argument is taking from the university administrator’s perspective. He/she is saying that if it is not for helping the students’ financial problems, they won’t have these TA posts.
Thus, it doesn’t matter if the stipends exceed their tuition, because the school need them.
I agree with Graeme that it is rare to undermine a premise, but it’s the best answer among others.
Ryan says
The administrator says that their “sole purpose of TA’s doing what they do is funding their education, if these TA’s could otherwise fund their education, they wouldn’t be here.”
If answer D was true, wouldn’t that also contradict the administrator and weaken the argument? Having stipends exceeding tuition cost would make that part of the administrator’s argument wrong, as it would mean that there are clearly other purposes to their presence. Is it because this explanation would also have to prove that degrees aren’t also a motivator?
FounderGraeme Blake says
Good question. Tuition isn’t the only cost of education. There’s books, cost of living, various add on fees and so on. The stipends may be designed to fund that as well.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.
Chris says
Doesn’t “proposed” in C suggest that the university may not have actually made the 10% replacement? In which case, there doesn’t seem to be an alternative reason to have teaching assistants. Whether the university wanted the replacement or not, if it is not actually implemented then indeed there is no other purpose for teaching assistants to perform services for the university.
Where did I go wrong in my reasoning here?
Thanks!
FounderGraeme Blake says
C suggests the university administrator is lying. They claim the university only uses teaching assistants out of benevolence, to help grad students afford their studies.
C says that the university is considering using more grad student teaching assistants for cost savings. This suggests they are aware they save money by using the grad students in this way. Hence their claim of benevolence is a lie; they calculate their own interest regarding teaching assistants.
It isn’t often an lsat answer will contradict a premise, but they can do so.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.
Rose says
I just want a clarification for this question, does the contradiction work here because it’s contradicting what the University administrator has SAID rather than a hard fact?
The administrator said that the “sole purpose of having teaching assistants perform services for the university is to enable them to fund their education” but allowing answer choice C to contradict that statement would also essentially be weakening the credibility of the university administrator as well?
That was my thought process on this question, but would like some input!
Thanks!
FounderGraeme says
There’s no actual rule against contradicting facts in the stimulus. It just doesn’t happen much.
So I wouldn’t split hairs here over whether the answer contradicted a fact or an opinion. LSAT answers can contradict whatever they like. It’s very possible for a future answer to contradict a fact, even though it’s not common.