PT59.S2.Q22 - Nutritious Breakfast

Ashley2018-1

I don't understand how A would strengthen the argument. If even a few members of Group B ate nutritious breakfasts and didn't increase their productivity as much as Group A did, wouldn't that weaken the argument even if Group A has a stronger correlation between eating nutritious breakfasts and increasing in productivity? And when A says few in Group B had nutritious breakfasts, can that be translated as "most did not have nutritious breakfasts?"

Admin Note: https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-59-section-2-question-22/

canihazJD

@"ashley.tien" said:
I don't understand how A would strengthen the argument. If even a few members of Group B ate nutritious breakfasts and didn't increase their productivity as much as Group A did, wouldn't that weaken the argument even if Group A has a stronger correlation between eating nutritious breakfasts and increasing in productivity? And when A says few in Group B had nutritious breakfasts, can that be translated as "most did not have nutritious breakfasts?"

AC A says "Few workers..." not "A few...", in other words not many workers in group B ate nutritious breakfasts.

I'll leave it there so you can give it another shot!

Ashley2018-1

Oh. Well it says "few" not "a few" so most didn't eat nutritious breakfasts?

Ashley2018-1

I heard someone say A eliminates the possibility that people in Group B ate nutritious breakfasts as well and I sort of get that but the answer choice says few so that to me implies that some people in Group B ate them and didn't experience an increase so it would weaken

hopefulling

'A' also rules out the assumption that workers (in general; and OK, it rules out that most) may eat a nutritious breakfast at home / outside of work, (which, if that assumption was true, would weaken the argument that is saying that it was THE BREAKFAST that makes the workers productive ... since, if everyone ate a breakfast, you couldn't say that the breakfast made workers A more productive).

Think of that breakfast as the CAUSE of the productivity between the two compared groups. (Which is also what the conclusion is saying) Now, rule out the other 3 options:
1) reversed - nope.
2) alternate cause - unlikely (nothing presented)
3) no correlation - choice 'A' rules this out, as the B workers didn't eat a breakfast (creating a difference between the two groups that the conclusion is causally connecting).

And at the same time, as the conclusion focuses on 'breakfast,' we/you have to keep your assumptions focused on breakfast. The strengthening aspect has to focus on breakfast also.

It's not a good argument (lots of assumptions in general!! Since, what if most of worker A tossed it out - they received it and didn't eat it?), so maybe instead of thinking of the workers receiving a nutritious breakfast that increased productivity, think of them receiving something else (something nuts, like a bunch of cocaine or athletes receiving performance enhancing drugs: if the whole team A took drugs, and the other team B just had a few people taking the same drugs, which team would be more productive? And would it strengthen an argument if someone said the drugs made the first team more productive/better?) Crazy reference, but maybe it helps to go all out to see it better??? Now, would it strengthen this argument, if you ruled out that most of team B had also taken drugs? That few people from team B took performance enhancing drugs? Could you better say that the drugs made the performance of team A better?