Q15 - Which one of the following practices

[lichenrachel]

I don't see a perfect match in any of the choices. The criticized practice in the argument is to let board of directors decide salaries for corporate executives in order to prevent excessively large salaries. However, since some of the board members are corporate executives themselves, they might be biased and seek benefits for themselves in the determination of salaries.

The answer A says "giving physicians not directly involved in a suit". Does this mean they might be indirectly involved? Otherwise, I can't figure out why A is the right answer.

Thanks in advance.

[giladedelman]

Great question. Your analysis of the stimulus is good, but I think you're leaving out one key detail, namely, in what way the board members are biased, and what sorts of benefits they might seek for themselves. The argument tells us that the source of the bias is not that the board members are setting their own salaries, but that they have an interest in setting high executive salaries in order to influence the salaries their own boards give them.

Answer (A), though not really a "perfect match," gives the example most vulnerable to this same criticism. Physicians not directly involved in the case might not have a direct interest in its outcome, but they would have an interest in setting an example that would influence damages awarded in cases in which they are directly involved. In other words, a physician might be biased in favor of low damages in the same way that our board members might be biased in favor of high executive pay.

(B) doesn't match because the legislators are directly concerned with their own pay.

(C) isn't even close. Having incentive to work efficiently isn't analogous to bias in deciding someone else's compensation.

(D) has no apparent bias. Why wouldn't a retired athlete be impartial?

(E) might contain an example of bias -- there could be incentive to denigrate the contributions of one's coworkers -- but this is another case of direct interest, and it doesn't have anything to do with setting an example for future cases.

Does that answer your question? Let me know if this one is still bothering you.

[momolaw]

Quick question-

I am somewhat confused by this part of the sentence.

"the damages due to" does this mean the damages that are owed to the plaintiffs or the damages that are caused by the plaintiffs?

I know i feel silly asking, but I just can't seem to clarify this.
Thank you

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

(A) "damages due to successful plaintiffs" refers to the damages owed to plaintiffs successful in their medical malpractice suits.

Hope that helps!

[dhlim3]

This sounds more like a Parallel Reasoning, not Parallel Flaw, question.

[t-haga-k42]

Although I know the answer is obvious, I would deeply appreciate it if someone could give me a tip on how to approach such answer choices.
When I did this problem, I knew the flaw and was on the right path in looking for the correct answer, but just couldn't see how A was a match. I just couldn't see that not being involved in a major role in a suit had indirect influence on these physicians. When I did this problem, I crossed out A right away, without seeing the connection. Is there any way in being more tactical with answer choices? Although I know this is all logic, and should be straightforward in a sense, there are just some problems I completely miss in a similar process, not realizing how an answer choice is in fact well connected to the argument. Are there any mechanical approaches, especially when choosing among answer choices that I don't quite understand or see a logical connection?

Besides from practicing to read carefully and trying to grasp the logical connection, I have been eliminating only those answers which I can have a clear understanding of what the answer choice means, and keep the others as contenders, refraining from eliminating those that I may be uneasy with. Although this has helped, I would like to excel more, so I would appreciate it very much if I could have some advice on this.

Thank you very much in advance.

[AliceInWonderland]

Hi t-haga-k42,

I like (and am personally using) the way you decide whether to eliminate an answer choice right away or keep it as a contender. With regard to your question:

I just couldn't see that not being involved in a major role in a suit had indirect influence on these physicians.

I'm guessing you misunderstood answer choice A. We can break down A this way: "in medical malpractice suits, giving physicians not directly involved in a suit a major role in determining the damages due to successful plaintiffs" -> "in medical malpractice suits, giving [those physicians who are not directly involved in a suit] a major role in determining [the damages to be paid to successful plaintiffs]".

Let's denote those physicians who are not directly involved in a suit as group A, and those physicians who are directly involved as group B. Although group A are not directly involved in a suit, group A might be biased when determining the damages to be paid by group B because the result can have an indirect influence on group A.

Similarly, denote those members of a particular corporation's board who are executives of *other* corporations as group A, and the executives of this particular corporation as group B. Although group A are not directly setting their own salaries, group A might be biased when setting the salaries of group B because the result can have an indirect influence on group A.

Hope that makes sense!