Q16 - Corporate business, like species, must

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Necessary Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Sometimes a business must become a different corporation in order to survive. Evidence: Businesses must adapt to survive. Adapting sometimes requires changing the core philosophy.

Answer Anticipation:
There is a lot of symbol repetition here, making it seem like this question is probably testing a missing link. "businesses", "adapting", and "surviving / going extinct" are all mentioned multiple times. The 'new guy' in the conclusion is the idea of "becoming a different corporation". Did we ever talk about that in the evidence? What idea is that meant to connect up with? The closest thing to "becoming a different corporation" in the evidence is the idea of "changing the core corporate philosophy". The author seems to assume that "if you're changing you're core corporate philosophy, you're becoming a different corporation".

Correct Answer:
E

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Red flag: "NO business". This answer is tempting, since the author seemed to say "survival requires adapting, and adapting requires changing core philosophy". But, critically, the author only said that SOMETIMES adapting requies changing philosophy. So the author doesn't have to assume that ALL business will have to change core philosophy to survive.

(B) Red flag"Invariably". This is way too strong. It's also not our prephrase (which would link 'changing philosophy' to 'becoming different corporation'), so not very tempting on a first pass. The author talked about when a business is "no longer efficient" (absolute). This answer talks about when a business becomes "LESS efficient" (relative). Those are never the same on LSAT.

(C) Super tempting! This seems like our prephrase: "if you change core philosophies, than you've become a different corporation". This answer is backwards, though, as it would read "If different corps, then different philosophies" This answer means "given any two different corporations, you'll have two different core philosophies." That doesn't need to be true. According to this idea, every corporation has a unique core philosophy. The author doesn't need that to be true. It works for her if HP and IBM currently have the same core philosophy. All the author is assuming is that "if HP changes it's core philosophy, then HP has become a different corporation."

(D) Red flag: "if ___ , it will ___". This is a rule that says "if you do ___ , you are guaranteed to keep existing". The author provided rules that said "if you DON'T do ___, you are guaranteed to NOT keep existing". If you AREN'T any longer efficient, if you DON'T adapt, if you DON'T change your core philosophy, you will NOT survive. So this answer is just performing an illegal negation of stuff the author said.

(E) Yes! This sounds like our prephrase, "if you change your core philosophy, you become a different corporation". It has extreme words (you can't do ___ without ___), but we can match that up with the final two sentences, which essentially read "change core philosophy ONLY BY becoming a different corporation".

Takeaway/Pattern: (C) is a really tough answer. It doesn't advertise itself as a universal. If people interpreted (C) as saying "at least some" different corporations have different core philosophies, it would be correct. But when you say something like "NFL players are tough", you're not saying 'at least one of them'; you're saying all of them. If the subject of your sentence is a general noun, and there are no quantity words hedging your statement, then you're making a universal claim about that subject noun.

#officialexplanation

[chike_eze]

Correct = (E)
Question Type: Necessary Assumption

Argument:
Corporations must adapt to survive. Businesses that are not efficient will cease to exist. Sometimes a business must change its core corporate philosophy to adapt; therefore, sometimes a business will survive only if it becomes a different corporation.

survive -> adapt
adapt <--some--> change in core philosophy
i.e.,
survive -> adapt <--some--> change in core philosophy
-----
survive <--some--> different corporation

Gap: changing core corporate philosophy ___ different corporation.
> change in core philosophy -> different corporation

(E) Business cannot change core corporate philosophy if not different corporation. i.e.,
not different corporation -> not change core philosophy
Change in core philosophy -> different corporation

(A) "No business can survive" not change in core -> not survive
too strong, and does not get at gap
(B) "less efficient... surrender core philosophy" does not relate change in core philosophy to different corp.
(C) "different corporations = different core philosophies" -- this is a shell-game choice. It has the terms we need but it doesn't associate them in the right way.
(D) not change core philosophy -> survive (not survive -> change core philosophy) . Hmm, this does not relate to the gap.

[maryadkins]

Great job! I don't understand the double arrow exactly but if all you're saying is that some businesses in order to adapt must change their core philosophy, then that's right.

[camerojg]

Having a little trouble eliminating C. I see that the gap requires assuming that at least sometimes, changing core corporate philosophies requires becoming a different corporation. Is C wrong because it reverses the logic? That is, does it suggest that if you've become a different corporation, you've changed your core corporate philosophies?

My hunch is that even the negated version (different corporations DON'T have different philosophies) doesn't destroy the argument because the argument seems to allow for becoming a different corporation without changing philosophies. Just want to confirm that with one of the experts. Thanks in advance!

[john.o.wray]

This one really throws me for a loop. Had it down to E and C, thought E was an answer to a sufficient assumption question, and C was not.

Both, if negated, destroy the argument. Help!

[ptewarie]

^ both C and E when negated weaken the entire argument but ONLY E invalidates the conclusion. C invalidates the evidence and weakens it, but does not necessarily invalidate it. There is a difference between weakening/strengthening and an assumption.

1. Premise:
Businesses SOME adapt only by changing core philosophy

2. Conclusion:
Business SOME survive(adapt) ONLY by becoming different corporation


We established earlier that survive->adapt so you can substitute survive->adapt


Assumptions need to link EVIDENCE AND CONCLUSION.

All terms being equal, the thing that needs to be linked
is "Changing core philsophy ONLY by becoming different corporation. "

This perfectly matches E.

C says " different corporations have different corporate philosophies". In other words Company A has different philosophy from B, B different from C, C different from D so that every company MUST have different philosophy and that NO company has same philosophy. Does that NECESSARILY have to be true? NO.

Company A could change its philosophy( We provide great tools) by becoming a different company and with a different philosophy( " We are best in market) DESPITE that another company, C, also has the same philosophy ( We are best in market). Nothing stops A from doing that(at least not what is mentioned in stem).
So since A
1) became a different corporation
2) Changed its core philosophy

DESPITE it now sharing a philosophy with another company, it means that this option is NOT necessary

Remember- necessary assumptions means that the ASSUMPTION IS NECCESSARY FOR Conclusion to be true.
This is different than other question types(strengthen/weaken for example where this is not the case).

Here is a self-made example:


Whenever it's hot out so I must ONLY play soccer the whole day
so Whenever its hot out I must ONLY wear sandals



Which one is an assumption required?
Answer choices :

A) If you play soccer the whole day, you must ONLY wear sandals

B) Its a really good idea to wear sandals while playing soccer


Notice A is the easy answer. However, if I negate B, it would say " it's a bad idea to wear sandals while playing soccer". Sure that kind of weakens the argument, but it by no means DESTROYS it. Whereas A, is REQUIRED.


hope this helps

[oa246]

I circled, boxed, and underlined the word ONLY in the conclusion, because it changes everything.

In situation X, you can’t adapt unless you change your philosophy. Therefore, in situation X, you can survive ONLY if you become something different.

C) need not refer to the SAME corporation. That is, even if different corp’s don’t have different philosophies, it doesn’t destroy the conclusion reached here about the corporations in situation X who can survive ONLY by becoming another corporation.

E) on the other hand, if negated, would destroy the argument. If a business can change its core philosophy WITHOUT becoming a different corporation, then in situation X ("sometimes"), becoming a different corporation isn’t the ONLY way to survive.

[JAREDTX1993]

For (c), if a corp can't have a different corporate philosophy from any other, it could never change its philosophy.

Therefore the conclusion couldn't follow.

I can't eliminate c, though I chose e.

[asafezrati]

For (c), if a corp can't have a different corporate philosophy from any other, it could never change its philosophy.

Therefore the conclusion couldn't follow.

I can't eliminate c, though I chose e.

You can eliminate C.

We have established:
1. Survive -> Adapt
2. Adapt --sometimes--> Changing Core Phil.
(yes, I know that "sometimes" and other qualifications are somewhat problematic in diagraming, but you get the idea)

Conclusion:
Survive --sometimes--> Becoming Diff. Corp.

The overall logical structure used by the speaker is:
Survive -> Adapt --sometimes--> Changing Core Phil. -> Becoming Diff. Corp.

Now for the answer choices:

E) Change Core Phil. -> Becoming Diff. Corp.
Yes, thats the assumption used.

C) Diff. Corp. -> Diff. Core Phil.
which is can be seen as equivalent to:
Becoming Diff. Corp -> Changing Core Phil.
It's a mistaken reversal.
It might be true, and it might be false, but is in no way a necessary assumption.

I wouldn't work with negation here. Trying to explain it here was a bit difficult because of the "sometimes". Essentially I would see if the negation affects the assumption I've found in the structure, but after discovering the assumption (which is not only necessary, but also sufficient), I think the negation is just a waste of 10 seconds.

[ganbayou]

Hi,
I'm not sure what shell-game means...I thought C is wrong because in the conclusion it says "sometimes" so it does not have to be true "different corporations have different core corporate philosophies." Did I understand why it is wrong correctly?

Thanks,

[maryadkins]

You're saying the right thing, I think, but just to be sure (and I don't know what shell game means, either, it doesn't matter):

We do have a shift in terms between "core corporate philosophy" and "different corporation" in the stimulus. The argument is assuming:

change in core phil --> diff corp

That is, changing your core phil requires becoming a different corporation (otherwise the conclusion makes no sense).

(C) is wrong because it flips this logic. It says that if you're a different corporation, you have a different philosophy. This doesn't have to be true. Some can have the same the same philosophies. We just need some to have different ones (like you said).

[mahdib21]

I'm a bit confused, isn't E a sufficient assumption? Aren't we looking for something that says that changing philosophy sometimes changes corporation, as opposed to answer choice E which says it always changes the corporation?

To clarify, you can negate E to say: A business CAN change philosophy its without becoming a different corporation. This doesn't destroy the argument, since you only need some businesses becoming different corporations, so not all need to become a different corporation

[JonghyukJ247]

I got this correct and I understand why all wrong answer choices are wrong.

However, I'm not sure how the negated version of C isn't able to destroy the argument.

It will be "Different corporations DO NOT have different core corp philosophies".

And the author argues and assumes that when you change your corp philosophy, then you become a different corp.

But according to the negated C, even if you've become a different, then you still have the same philosophy, because different corps have philosophies NOT DIFFERENT from those of each other's, which basically means that they all share the same philosophy.

Thank you