LR question help?

Cecilia Z

Hey guys!

I was wondering if anyone could help clarify this tough Weaken question for me. Here's the link to the question: https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-28-section-3-question-17/

I though (C) was positing an alternative explanation for the phenomenon (the significant salary gap between employers): decreased readership. I didn't feel good choosing this AC because the conclusion was that lower wages were justified, and (C) doesn't really touch on that. But, I just thought (B) was making too far of a jump. Thoughts?

GrecoRoman

An alternative explanation would work for weakening if the conclusion was "the reason these reporters are paid less is because they get compensation in the form of valuable training." Then you could say "no it's maybe because of this reason instead." But we don't need to give an alternative reason. His conclusion is that the pay is justified, not why the reporters are paid less. So the premise is that "the reporters are given alternate compensation in the form of valuable training which makes up for the pay gap", and conclusion is "therefore the pay is justified". We need show why that premise doesn't actually support the conclusion as well as it seems. Answer B does that by saying most of the reporters are already very experienced, so they aren't actually receiving valuable training compensation on the job.

As far as B going too far, it's not that much of a stretch but ya sometimes you have to jump a little gap. That's why you need to rely on elimination very often to get the curve breakers. Your reasoning seems good, just don't pick answers you know clearly have problems such as C. Anytime I don't feel good about an answer choice I head right back to the conclusion to make sure I didn't miss anything. You got this, keep up the good work.