PT75.S3.Q05 - Home ownership is a sign of economic prosperity...

meletzyosher

This paradox question seemingly has two correct answers: A and E. The paradox is that HE (home ownership) corresponds with prosperity while HE also corresponds with unemployment. Choice A deals with how it can correlate with unemployment while E deals with how it correlates with prosperity ("economically secure" is synonymous enough with "economic prosperity"). Both answers seemingly fall short of explaining the other side of the paradox. However, I chose E on the basis the A was more wrong in that it states that owning a home makes it harder to move to a region "where jobs are MORE plentiful" (emphasis added). We are not precluding jobs from being plentiful from where our home is. Just that on the "plentiful scale", our region is lower.
At the end of the day though, Choice A is correct and I haven't found any forum that adequately explains why. Here's my explanation. Please share your thoughts on it.
The stimulus is not concerned with why HE correlates with prosperity. The author seems to take it for granted and already understands it. His wonderment begins at the second sentence when he introduces the correlation to unemployment. In other words, his real question is why HE can ever correspond to unemployment. And Choice A is the only answer that addresses this issue. This is not really a paradox question in my opinion but more of a Strengthener.

https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-75-section-3-question-05/

Admin note: edited title and link

lTexlawz

@ralphrab ,I will explain why. The stimulus wants to why people who own their own home and have high unemployment. The first premise is saying if you have a home that people are prosperous. The next premise is saying you have all these people who own these home and there is high unemployment. The gist means in the second premise that they are stuck in the home because they are paying mortgage and makes more difficult to move to a place where they are jobs. Answer choice A is the right answer and fits why is being explained..

Answer choice E doesn't explain why the high unemployment and the home ownership. The word that you should fixate on somewhat surprising in the second premise. This is discrepancy indicator. Answer choice E doesn't glue the both premises to explain both. Answer choice E is wrong.

Laabradir33

The stimulus is not concerned with why HE correlates with prosperity. The author seems to take it for granted and already understands it. His wonderment begins at the second sentence when he introduces the correlation to unemployment. In other words, his real question is why HE can ever correspond to unemployment. And Choice A is the only answer that addresses this issue. >

you just answered the question so perfectly...
You're absolutely right that answer choice A is the only answer that explains this "wonderment" a.k.a paradox.
And that's all you need to do in paradox questions. Just find that "wonderment" and come up with an explanation of it.

Forget about all the correlations, you don't have to strengthen any correlations.