PT27.S1.Q22 - some people believe that saying

Samcandoit!

http://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-27-section-1-question-22/
I was struggling with C and E, and I chose C. But the answer is D. To me, C D E all try to negate the relationship between "saying a organization is hierarchy" and "concluding how the organization operates". Why D is the correct answer? Thank you guys!

Matt1234567

So we want to find an answer that has at least some support form the stimulus, since this is an inference question.

What are the facts that we're given?
1) some people believe that just because an organization is hierarchical, then we know everything about how the organization operates.
2) All bureaucratically controlled organizations are hierarchical.
3) The Public Work Department is bureaucratically controlled (therefore, it is hierarchical).
4) The Public Work Department operates differently than most other bureaucratically controlled organization.

What can we infer from these facts? Well, the only thing we can say is that not all hierarchical organizations operate the same way. Where do we find support from this? From the fact that the Public Works Department is hierarchical, but it operates differently from other hierarchical organizations. So it must be true that at least some hierarchical organizations don't operate the same way.

C is wrong because it's way too strong. We cannot say that "nothing can be reliably concluded about how an organization operates" just because it's hierarchical. We know that some organization (Public Works) does not operate the same as most other hierarchical, but there's no support that hierarchy has absolutely no influence on operations.

E) just like, C, is way too strong. We know that being bureaucratically controlled may not have everything to do with how that organization operates (supported by the Public Works example) but we can't conclude that it has nothing to do with how the organization operates.

c.janson35

From the statements in the stimulus we can validly infer that the Public Works department is hierarchical. Even though this is true, it is also true that the PW department operates quite differently than other bureaucratically controlled (I.E. hierarchical b/c of the second sentence: BC--->H) organizations. Therefore it must be true that some hierarchical organizations operate differently, because we know that one definitely does: the PW department! This is essentially what answer choice D says.

As for C: we don't know that "nothing" can be concluded about how hierarchical organizations operate. We only know that some operate differently, but there may be some operational strategy that all hierarchical organizations employ that we don't know about. Thus we cannot validly conclude that nothing can be known.

E: Again, the language is too strong to validly conclude. "Nothing" to do with how it operates? We don't know this, only that some operate differently, I.E. The PW department.

Good luck, hope this helps!