LSAT 143 – Section 3 – Question 13

LSAT 143 - Section 3 - Question 13

June 2015

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT143 S3 Q13
+LR
Weaken +Weak
A
3%
158
B
15%
161
C
46%
166
D
32%
163
E
4%
159
151
166
180
 +Hardest 147.721 +SubsectionMedium

University administrator: Graduate students incorrectly claim that teaching assistants should be considered university employees and thus entitled to the usual employee benefits. Granted, teaching assistants teach classes, for which they receive financial compensation. However, the sole purpose of having teaching assistants perform services for the university is to enable them to fund their education. If they were not pursuing degrees here or if they could otherwise fund their education, they would not hold their teaching posts at all.

Summarize Argument
The author concludes that teaching assistants should not be considered university employees. This is based on an intermediate conclusion that the sole purpose of having teaching assistants is to enable them to fund their education. The intermediate conclusion is based on the fact that if teaching assistants were not pursuing their degrees at university, or if they could otherwise already pay for their education, they wouldn’t have the teaching assistant jobs.

Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that TA’s inability to fund their education without having the TA position implies that the only purpose of the position is to help the TAs. (This overlooks that the university might have multiple purposes behind the TA position, one of which could be to use them as they would use employees.)

A
The administrator is cognizant of the extra costs involved in granting employee benefits to teaching assistants.
What the administrator is or is not aware of has no bearing on the administrator’s argument. You’d be making an ad hominem fallacy if you think that what she is personally aware of concerning costs should affect how we evaluate her argument.
B
The university employs adjunct instructors who receive compensation similar to that of its teaching assistants.
The fact there are other employees who receive similar compensation doesn’t suggest that the purpose of having TAs isn’t what the administrator claims. The argument’s reasoning isn’t based on how much TAs are paid compared to others.
C
The university has proposed that in the interest of economy, 10 percent of the faculty be replaced with teaching assistants.
This helps suggest that there’s more than one purpose to TAs. If the university is trying to replace faculty employees with TAs to save money, then at least part of the purpose of TAs is related to cost-savings. That means the “sole” purpose isn’t just to help the TAs.
D
Most teaching assistants earn stipends that exceed their cost of tuition.
Funding education can require more than just paying tuition. So the fact TAs earn more than tuition is consistent with the claim that the purpose of having TAs is to allow them to fund their education.
E
Teaching assistants work as much and as hard as do other university employees.
The argument concerns the purpose of having TAs and whether that purpose justifies treating them as employees. How hard the TAs might work isn’t relevant to the relationship between the TA’s purpose and their status as employees.

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LSAT PrepTest 143 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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