PT60.S1.Q13 - Many economists claim that financial rewards

Shrilaraune

Hi all!
So long story short, I constantly find myself vacillating between answer choice b and answer choice c. I know what the right answer is supposed to be, but I'm trying to build the road to understanding it myself so that I can replicate it later. I came across an explanation that stated, "Note the introduction to this stimulus: “Many economists claim…” This is a common device used by the test to introduce an argument with which the author will disagree. Here the economists claim that financial rewards are the strongest incentive for choosing a job. The author disagrees with this assertion in the last sentence by concluding that these economists “overestimate” how important money is to choosing a job. To weaken the author’s argument, we need to strengthen the economists’ argument"
(Admin note: Please add a link when you quote from a page. https://forum.powerscore.com/lsat/viewtopic.php?t=5808)

This is the first time I've heard this (specifically the last sentence) and so I wanted to gut check with you all. Is this...actionable intelligence...or is it just something convenient made up to explain this person's choice?

Thanks!

Admin note: edited title.
https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-60-section-1-question-13/

BlindReviewer

In response to the statement you quote, "To weaken the author's argument, we need to strengthen the economists argument," that's definitely true, though I don't think I consciously think about it that way. Unless it's one of those disagree questions or a stem that refers to a party in the stimulus, the parties involved are generally irrelevant / I don't think thinking about it in those terms will be particularly useful.

To actually get at what makes this question difficult (and I would agree with you that aside from B and C, the other choices are easy to eliminate), you need to more carefully and precisely pick apart the argument structure regardless of the parties involved:

Conclusion: Economists overestimate the degree to which people are motivated by money in job choices
Premise: Some surveys show that most people don't name high salary as the most desirable characteristic of a job

I also got this question wrong when I took this PT, and I agree that B is very tempting. I think under time I just chose it and moved on, but felt a little weird about it. The reason it should feel weird to pick B is that it tries to contradict the premise rather than weakening the relationship between the conclusion and the premise.

What I mean by this is that if you pick B, you're putting two surveys against each other -- some that show people don't rank high pay as the most desirable aspect of the job, and some that show people tend to prefer high paying jobs rather than low paying jobs (all other considerations aside). B tries to contradict the survey mentioned in the stimulus, but I hope it's clear that it doesn't, really. It doesn't because the survey in the stimulus is concerned with "most desirable" aspect of the job, and the survey in B is concerned with a relative relationship between high pay and low pay. So what if people prefer high paying jobs to low paying jobs? We know nothing about how this compares to other aspects of the jobs, and it may still very well be true that economists have overestimated the importance of money. Maybe health insurance or something is still more important than money to prospective employees.

The gap in the argument: conflating "money" with "high salary."

When you notice this, you realize that B just doesn't capitalize on the big flaw here, while C does. C weakens the argument by not trying to contradict the survey results but attacking the potential relevance of the survey results. C is saying, "Who cares if they prefer high salary jobs? They're still driven by money -- some jobs have low salary but give a lot of employee discounts, pay for food/laptops etc."

Writing this out really helped (sorry to make it so long!), and through it I realize now that C is actually very subtle. It weakens by showing that high salary is not the only indicator of a person's concern with money. A more blatant way of weakening the argument would be something like "some jobs that pay lower salaries tend to have much better retirement plans / other money-related perks." Also the use of "often" here can be read as "most" so C is really saying "most jobs that pay the same salary vary in financial benefits," which sticks out more to me as the correct answer than "often."

Shrilaraune

@BlindReviewer Thank you so much! This is wonderful!
I think part of my confusion (and it is still there) is that there are three different discussions happening?
1. Economists say financial rewards are the strongest incentive
2. Author says, nope. Those folks are overestimating how important money is
At this point I'm like...well okay I guess? But since financial rewards are like...everything...you're not really addressing their argument (I don't see financial rewards and money as the same thing).
3. Author says. They're overestimating how important money is because in maybe one survey people didn't pick high salary out of a list of desirable features of a job. (high salary is not the same as financial rewards...and may not be the same as money...but even it it is...the logic is not great...)
@_@
And so at this point I'm almost not sure what I should tackle. Do I tackle the fact that the author's conclusion doesn't address the argument of the Economists properly or the fact that this survey only represents a possible correlation re: money not being as important as "other things" but not a definitive statement about the importance of money OR the fact that this same survey doesn't really have much to say about the economist's argument?

Perhaps part of my problem is that the conclusion appears two fold? The economists are wrong and money is not the most important thing. Maybe my issue is that I can't see the conclusion as a cohesive statement?

BlindReviewer

It's interesting because what you say:

And so at this point I'm almost not sure what I should tackle. Do I tackle the fact that the author's conclusion doesn't address the argument of the Economists properly or the fact that this survey only represents a possible correlation re: money not being as important as "other things" but not a definitive statement about the importance of money OR the fact that this same survey doesn't really have much to say about the economist's argument?

is all captured in choice C. Let me try to help break up the three things you're saying here:

1) "The author's conclusion doesn't address the argument of the Economists properly"

This is basically a given in any weakening question -- we already know that the conclusion/premise combo (together these two things are an argument) doesn't address the argument properly. That is, we already know there's a flaw -- the question is just calling upon us to address this flaw.

2) The survey only represents a possible correlation -- it doesn't make a definitive statement about how much people value money

Answer choice C gets at this. C basically says salary, most of the time, is not the sole indicator of financial benefits --- you can have the same salary and different financial benefits.

3) This survey doesn't say much about the economists argument

The survey doesn't say much about the economists argument because of 1 and 2.

Lastly, to address what you say about how there seems to be 3 things going on here, the three things (economists' argument; author says no; and author says they're overestimating money because...) those three things are respectively context, conclusion, and premise. Conclusion and premise together are the argument. The context doesn't really add to the reasoning structure -- that's exclusively between conclusion and premise. The context is rather a source for understanding the argument/referential statements.

Hope this helps!

Shrilaraune

YOU CAN IGNORE THIS AND READ THE NEXT POST

@BlindReviewer said:
It's interesting because what you say:

And so at this point I'm almost not sure what I should tackle. Do I tackle the fact that the author's conclusion doesn't address the argument of the Economists properly or the fact that this survey only represents a possible correlation re: money not being as important as "other things" but not a definitive statement about the importance of money OR the fact that this same survey doesn't really have much to say about the economist's argument?

is all captured in choice C. Let me try to help break up the three things you're saying here:

1) "The author's conclusion doesn't address the argument of the Economists properly"

This is basically a given in any weakening question -- we already know that the conclusion/premise combo (together these two things are an argument) doesn't address the argument properly. That is, we already know there's a flaw -- the question is just calling upon us to address this flaw.

Hmmm, I've always looked at weakening questions as exposing the reasoning error between the premises/support and the conclusion. It never occurred to me that the argument not addressing the context correctly was typical of weakening questions as well. Am I understanding you correctly? Because it seems like the fact that there is an error not only in the actual argument but also in the way the argument is referring to the context is what is giving me grief. Usually--at least in my memory--I only deal with the reasoning error between the conclusion and premise.

2) The survey only represents a possible correlation -- it doesn't make a definitive statement about how much people value money

Answer choice C gets at this. C basically says salary, most of the time, is not the sole indicator of financial benefits --- you can have the same salary and different financial benefits.

This is actually a really interesting way of looking a this. Thank you!

3) This survey doesn't say much about the economists argument

The survey doesn't say much about the economists argument because of 1 and 2.

Lastly, to address what you say about how there seems to be 3 things going on here, the three things (economists' argument; author says no; and author says they're overestimating money because...) those three things are respectively context, conclusion, and premise. Conclusion and premise together are the argument. The context doesn't really add to the reasoning structure -- that's exclusively between conclusion and premise. The context is rather a source for understanding the argument/referential statements.

Thanks for addressing this! I suppose I could have helped you along by actually being clear about my confusion. I'm sorry about that. So when I say there are 3 things going on, I meant that there seem to be more relationships I feel I'm being asked to evaluate than normal and I'm not sure which one I'm supposed to attempt to weaken. In theory, the one between the premises and the conclusion. But because the conclusion in this argument is somewhat referential--and doing it so, so poorly-- I suppose I'm not sure if I should weaken the actual argument the author made (this survey shows that the importance of money is overestimated), or the argument the author tried to make (it is not the case that financial rewards are the strongest incentive and to say so overestimates the importance of money. Proof: this survey). If it's the former, then I have my marching orders and that I can do. But if its the latter, then at what point does the weakening need to happen? Do I need to evaluate and weaken the gap between "not strongest incentive" and "to say so overestimates the importance of money" or the gap between the premise and the part of the conclusion that speaks to overestimating the importance money? Does that make any more sense?

Hope this helps!

Thanks for getting back to me!

Shrilaraune

Okay,
Third time's the charm. I took a proper nap and came back to this. Your responses have been fantastic and super patient given my previous inability to explain the source of my consternation in language we both share as long time lsat preppers. What can I say? It was supposed to be my break day haha. Regardless, thank you! I think I can explain better the perspective I'm trying to solve this from.

There are three keywords here
1. Financial Benefits
2. High Salary
3. Money

And to me, on my read before reading your first response, these three are not the same. There's where my confusion comes from. Yes there is a mismatch between 2 and 3--that's the reasoning flaw. But to my mind, there was also a gap between 1 and 3--and that threw me for a loop. I wasn't sure how to address the reasoning error between 2 and 3 as well as the mismatch of terms between 1 and 3--does that make more sense @BlindReviewer ? I felt like I had to address both gaps, because the conclusion of the argument has a reference to 1.

Based on your response, are you treating 3, like it means the same as or something similar enough to 1? That's the sense I got as I reread your explanation.

BlindReviewer

Ah I see --- and yes, I am treating 1 and 3 (Financial Rewards and Money) as the same thing. I kind of understand why you might see them as two different things, but I feel like it's one of those LSAT stress/burnout situations where you start making more of the language than is sometimes needed (trust me, I can relate haha). The reason why 1 and 3, at least in my mind, can be thought of as the same thing, is because of the context/conclusion/premise structure. The conclusion is a rebuttal of the context, in which case financial rewards and money would have to be the same thing. Otherwise it would be way too loose of an argument (I now understand the difficulty you were having before, saying there are too many things to address). It's fair enough to say money and high salary are not the same thing because there are other ways of gaining money/financial rewards, but money and financial rewards are close enough to be the same thing. Moreover, the conclusion doesn't even explicitly point to "money" as the strongest incentive -- the conclusion is paraphrasing the economists' argument by saying they "overestimate the degree to which people are motivated by money."

On some flaw questions I think there are situations where the conclusion just doesn't address the opposing argument, but usually those are way more obvious, and also usually the two arguments are very clearly arguing against each other. Here the economists' aren't actually a party in the argument staking their claim -- they're just the reference of "some people say...so it's wrong" structure. Usually when the flaw you're alluding to (not addressing the argument) comes up, it's in a situation where two people are talking to each other and someone says "You shouldn't do this because of blah blah" and the opposing party says "But [insert something irrelevant but slightly close]"

Maybe take a few days off and come back to the question and see if you still think financial rewards and "motivated by money" are not the same thing in this situation!

Shrilaraune

@BlindReviewer Thank you so much for taking the time! This makes so much more sense!