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Use of the word "significantly" in an answer choice

MochiosisMochiosis Alum Member
in Logical Reasoning 27 karma

PT 54 (June 2008), LR1 Q9. This is a Necessary Assumption question I got wrong initially but got correct on the blind review after grudgingly going with (A).

Here's the argument as I see it: the new minimum wage increase means that the museum's expenses exceed its revenue, so now it has to make adjustments that will impact museum-goers.

The correct answer is (A): Some of the museum's employee's are not paid significantly more than the minimum wage.

I skipped over (A) initially because it sounded so weak the way it's phrased with the word 'significantly.' I now get the basic idea, and I get that all the other answer choices are just plain wrong, but STILL. Anyone care to chime in and perhaps share how they navigate around a word like this? I don't recall seeing it in the CC.

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  • Jonathan WangJonathan Wang Yearly Sage ⭐
    edited November 2018 6869 karma

    Negation test it and get a sense of the full meaning before you start relying on specific vocabulary. The negated version of (A) says that there are some workers that are paid significantly more than minimum wage. The core of the answer choice is about the impact a minimum wage hike would have on worker salaries (i.e. if the workers are making a lot more than min wage, there's no impact on the museum's operations, wrecking the argument). Whatever specific degree 'significantly' entails is irrelevant - whether it's 20% or 40% or 80%, the ultimate point is that it's not a minor difference, so there's no wiggle room for someone to respond pedantically ("yes, but what if the increase is from $8 to $8.01?"). The LSAT isn't in the business of making the answer to a question turn on such a nebulous phrase; usually, if it feels like that's what they're doing, you've missed something else that's bigger and more important.

    In fact, this is often the case with necessary assumptions. When you negate a weak statement, you get a strong one (for example - "Someone in the world likes ice cream" turns into "Nobody likes ice cream"; "eating ice cream doesn't always result in a stomachache" flips to "eating ice cream always results in a stomachache"), and strong statements have the best chance of nuking arguments. This is why people often observe that you need to pick the 'small' or 'subtle' choices in NA questions - because negating a small statement often results in a monster that you can wield as a weapon.

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