PT15.S1(P4) - In 1964 the United States federal government

blackberry

Hi All,

The last sentence of the paragraph 2 reads: '...they argue that as the quality of black schools improved relative to that of white schools....'

J.Y. explains that from this, we cannot infer whether the quality of white schools remained the same, improved, and decreased. I understand this, but am wondering what the different interpretations of the sentence would be in the 3 scenarios.

What I think (assigning numbers as indicators of 'quality'):

Say the white schools originally were 10, black schools 5.

(1) In the case that white schools improved to 15, the net increase in quality for them would be 5. Therefore, whatever increase in quality of the black schools would have to be greater than +5, whether it be 11 or 12 (must be at minimum 11)

(2) In the case that white schools remained the same, then black schools can increase in any amount (but given the context of the passage, unlikely that it would supersede that of the white schools' original, 10)

(3) In the case that white schools decreased, say to 8 (so -2), black schools can increase in any amount, say 1, because that is still a greater than a -2.

Before J.Y.'s explanation, what I thought (1) would be meant if white schools improved to 15 (+5), black schools would also increase by +5 to 10. If this were the case, would the sentence have read: '...they argue that as the quality of black schools improved in parallel to that of white schools....'?

Please let me know what you think!

Admin note: edited title
https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-15-section-1-passage-4-passage/