PTA.S1.Q24 (SA) - The shoe factory in Centerville

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  AlexLSAT. Alum Member

  August 2022 797 karma

  Stimulus: The shoe factory in Centerville is the towns largest firm and it employs more unskilled workers on a full time basis than all of the other businesses in town combined. Thus, if the shoe factory closes, more than 50% of Centerville residents that are unskilled and are employed full time will lose their jobs.

  Explanation: There is one key assumption that destroys this argument... what if people working in Centerville don't actually live there? What if they work remote? We can not draw a conclusion of the residents of Centerville as a whole without knowing that EVERY person in the sample actually is a resident in Centerville!

  A : Completely irrelevant. More people tells us nothing about how many people are employed at the shoe factory that are actual residents.

  B : Again irrelevant, the stimulus already told us that the shoe factory "employs more unskilled workers on a full time basis than all other businesses in town combined." So, we established there is a lot of unskilled workers.. but we don't know whether they are residents.

  C : This is closer, but does not resolve the issue stated above. What if all of the unskilled workers work remote in different towns? What if they travel in to town every day?

  D : Correct. This eliminates the possibility that there are people who work that don't live there, and makes this argument valid.

  E : Okay....? So what? We need to talk about the workers/residents.