Q10 - Goswami: I support the striking

[rdown2b]

I see why the answer is D but I also think that E could have also worked. can someone tell me why e was wrong?

[LSAT-Chang]

Sure! I'll try my best to help you out! As for the correct answer choice for these types of questions, we really want to make sure that both parties have a clear opinion to it.

So with (D), we clearly know that Goswami agrees with the fact that these striking workers are underpaid (as he literally states it), whereas Nordecki disagrees with this pay issue (stating that the average is over $29,000).

However, with answer choice (E), do we know what both parties think? Well, to start off with Goswami, we can say that he disagrees with this statement since he explicitly states that he "supports the striking workers at Ergon Foods"! But how about Nordecki? Do we know what he thinks? NO! We have no clue on what he thinks about these workers going on strike! He doesn't even mention strike in his argument. If he had instead said something like, "If pay is the reason to go on strike, I must disagree." THEN we could perhaps say that he would agree with the statement in (E). But since Nordecki is just disagreeing with the "pay" being "low", we can't infer anything in regards to his opinion about the workers going on strike. Perhaps Nordecki could even disagree with (E) if these Ergon Food workers were going on a strike for another reason in which he agrees with that reason so he doesn't think it is "unreasonable" to go on strike. My point is that we just don't know what Nordecki thinks about (E).

Let me know if you have any further questions!

[medli5531]

I disagree with this assessment because I think we do know how Nordecki feels about the strike, but not the truth of falseness of the workers being underpaid.

Nordecki says, "If pay is the issue, I must disagree." We must ask what issue is he talking about, and thus we can find out with what he disagrees. You claimed that Nordecki disagrees with the pay issue, but that is not clear.

If (E) is incorrect and (D) is correct, the phrase would mean that he was saying, "If pay is the issue around which you base your decision that they are underpaid, I must disagree." This does not make sense. Instead, it makes much more sense if it means that "If pay is the issue around which you base your support for the workers striking, I must disagree." Then he cites how much they get paid in order to explain why he disagrees with Goswami's assessment that the strike is reasonable.

[giladedelman]

Hey, great discussion!

So here's the deal. First of all, we do not know whether Nordecki supports the striking workers. Why? Because he only says he disagrees if pay is the issue. But we don't know that pay is the issue. Perhaps he thinks the strike is justified by some other reason--say, by insufficient medical benefits, or something. So all his statement tells us is that he doesn't agree that the workers are underpaid.

Furthermore, even if we had proof that Nordecki doesn't agree with the striking workers, this is not the same as saying it was "unreasonable" for them to go on strike. For example, you might decide to become a vegetarian because you think it's more environmentally responsible. I might disagree (just a hypothetical!), but still think your decision is a reasonable decision. So answer (E) actually is totally out of scope because no one is talking about whether it was reasonable or not to go on strike.

Make sense?

[schwingrocker]

Is A wrong because Goswami never mentions anything about the average? He could still agree that the average is $29,000 even if the majority in fact make less than $20,000 because there could be a few workers with very high salaries, correct?

[lorraineogan]

I cannot confidently pinpoint why answer B is incorrect.

It states that "B" is the primary issue over which the workers are striking. I thought it was correct because Nordecki said, "If pay is the issue..." then went on to counter Goswani with conflicting evidence.

Is B wrong because the stem does not make clear what the primary issue is for the strike? Goswani states his opinion why he supports the strike, but that does not mean that that is the primary issue. And the if statement by Nordecki seems to imply that it's not certain what the primary issue is in the first place.

Gah! Mindless mistakes! Thanks in advance.

[ptraye]

can some1 explain why A is incorrect? i thought saying the majority make less than $20,000 per year is similar enough as the average is over $29,000.

what's the issue?

thanks.

[ohthatpatrick]

Question type: Identify the Disagreement

Task: read both paragraphs and then identify which claim(s) the first person said that the second person would disagree with.

In this case, Goswami makes three claims:
1. I support the striking workers
2. They are underpaid
3. The majority of them make less than $20k

Does Nordecki disagree with 1?
Not necessarily. N says that he wouldn't support the striking workers over the issue of pay. However that leaves the door open that N might still support the striking workers for some other reason (health benefits, working conditions, etc.)

Does N disagree with 2?
Seemingly yes. He says "if pay is the issue, I disagree." And the fact he advances about the avg. annual salary seems aimed at making the workers sound better paid than G was portraying.

Does N disagree with 3?
No. Average pay is not the same as majority pay, so N's statement about avg. pay doesn't in any way contradict G's statement about majority pay.

Say I have three workers:
one of them makes 100,000 per year and the other two each make 10,000 per year. Their average pay is 40,000 per year, but most of them make 10,000 per year.

The fact that "majority pay" and "average pay" are two completely different concepts is crucial to understanding that the only claim G made that N took issue with is "They are underpaid".

Another way to deal with answer choices on ID the Disagreement questions is simply to ask yourself for each choice, "Can I infer a Yes/No answer to this from person 1?" If not, the answer is dead. If so, see if you can infer the OPPOSITE answer from person 2.

(A) G makes no comment on avg. pay, so I can't infer whether he would agree/disagree with this. Eliminate.

(B) G does not tell us the primary reason for the strike. He tells us HIS primary reason for supporting the strike, but that's not the same as the WORKERS' primary reason for going on strike. Eliminate.

(C) We can infer that G would agree with this, assuming he thinks of himself as reasonable (which is pretty safe). Can we infer that N thinks it is UN-reasonable to support underpaid workers? No we can't. It's very likely that N would agree that it's totally reasonable to support underpaid workers. He just wouldn't agree that the employees at Ergon Foods are underpaid.

(D) We can infer G would agree with this (he states it explicitly). We can infer that N would disagree with this for reasons we already talked about. Correct answer!

(E) We don't quite know G's position but it's pretty supportable that he would agree with this. He supports them, so he probably thinks their action is reasonable. We do NOT know how N would judge this claim. N qualifies his statement as "If pay is the issue, I wouldn't support them." Again, N is attacking G's judgment about the workers being underpaid, NOT attacking the workers for going on strike.

Let us know if questions remain.

[roflcoptersoisoi]

(A) This is unique to N's argument. G makes no comment as to the average salary of the workers pay, only that a majority of them make under $20k
(B) None of them suggests that the pay is the primary reason for which they are on strike and thus cannot be a point of disagreement.
(C) Tempting, this seems unique to G's position. We have no idea what N thinks about this, only that he doesn't agree that the workers are underpaid.
(D) Bingo. G claims they striking workers are underpaid because the majority make less than $20k, N refutes this and substantiates his claim by giving the average salary of the striking workers
(E) This seems unique to G's position since the workers are underpaid. However we only know that N disagrees as to the reasoning G supports the strike but not whether it is reasonable for them to be striking, they could be on strike for other reasons for which N may agree.