LSAT 118 – Section 4 – Question 18

LSAT 118 - Section 4 - Question 18

December 2004

You need a full course to see this video. Enroll now and get started in less than a minute.

Request new explanation

Target time: 1:45

This is question data from the 7Sage LSAT Scorer. You can score your LSATs, track your results, and analyze your performance with pretty charts and vital statistics - all with a Free Account ← sign up in less than 10 seconds

Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT118 S4 Q18
+LR
Most strongly supported +MSS
Conditional Reasoning +CondR
A
42%
168
B
12%
162
C
9%
159
D
22%
163
E
14%
162
159
168
177
 +Hardest 147.106 +SubsectionMedium

Decentralization enables divisions of a large institution to function autonomously. This always permits more realistic planning and strongly encourages innovation, since the people responsible for decision making are directly involved in implementing the policies they design. Decentralization also permits the central administration to focus on institution-wide issues without being overwhelmed by the details of daily operations.

Summary
The stimulus says that decentralization allows different parts of a large institution to function autonomously. Autonomous functioning means that the same people are making decisions and implementing policies, which in turn allows more realistic planning and encourages innovation. Finally, decentralization lets the institution’s administrators focus on big-picture issues instead of daily operations.

Strongly Supported Conclusions
The stimulus supports these conclusions:
An institution whose divisions cannot function autonomously is not decentralized.
In institutions whose divisions do not function autonomously, planning is not always as realistic as possible.
If an institution’s central administrators are not able to focus on big-picture issues instead of daily operations, then the institution is not decentralized.

A
In large institutions whose divisions do not function autonomously, planning is not maximally realistic.
This is strongly supported. Based on the facts, when divisions function autonomously, planning becomes more realistic. That means that institutions without autonomous divisions could improve how realistically they plan—in other words, planning is not maximally realistic.
B
Innovation is not always encouraged in large centralized institutions.
This is not supported. Sure, decentralization encourages innovation, but that doesn’t mean that centralized institutions don’t encourage innovation. Maybe every type of institutional structure encourages innovation! We don’t know.
C
For large institutions the advantages of decentralization outweigh its disadvantages.
This is not supported. The stimulus discusses some advantages of decentralization, but we never learn about disadvantages at all. That means we can’t compare whether the advantages or disadvantages are more significant.
D
The central administrations of large institutions are usually partially responsible for most of the details of daily operations.
This is not supported. We know that decentralization allows administrators to not worry about daily operations, but that doesn’t tell us anything about how operations are usually managed. We don’t even know if most large institutions are decentralized or not!
E
The people directly involved in implementing policies are always able to make innovative and realistic policy decisions.
This is not supported. Based on the facts, this style of decision-making and implementation leads to more realistic planning and more innovation. But “more” is a comparison, not an absolute judgement. Even if planning gets more realistic, it might still be not very realistic.

Take PrepTest

Review Results

LSAT PrepTest 118 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

Get full LSAT course

Leave a Reply