Q18 - Decentralization enables divisions of large

[jefyuan]

I do not get why answer D choice is wrong when it says "with out being overwhelmed by the details of daily operations". doesn't this mean that now they do not have to do so much daily operations meaning that they once had partial responsibility for it. And I don't understand why A can be assumed since it's assuming "more realistic planning" = maximally realistic.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

The short answer is that (D) implies that large institutions are usually decentralized - that more large institutions are decentralized than centralized. It says, "the central administrations of large institutions are usually ..." The stimulus says nothing about what proportion of businesses are centralized vs. decentralized. Thus, there is no support for answer choice (D).

From the first sentence in the stimulus we know that if a large institution does not have divisions that function autonomously then that large institution is not decentralized. From the second sentence we know that centralization always permits more realistic planning. So, if a large institution were decentralized, then its planning is not maximally realistic. It could always centralize and thus get more realistic planning then it currently has. So, answer choice (A) is inferable from the first two statements in the stimulus.

Really tricky! This question always comes up when I'm looking at this test... Does that clarify your question? It's the key word "usually" in answer choice (D) that kills it. Answer choice (A) is a conditional relationship, however, that's the product of the first two conditional relationships in the stimulus.

[mrudula_2005]

The short answer is that (D) implies that large institutions are usually decentralized - that more large institutions are decentralized than centralized. It says, "the central administrations of large institutions are usually ..." The stimulus says nothing about what proportion of businesses are centralized vs. decentralized. Thus, there is no support for answer choice (D).

I did choose A since I was more confident with it, but I don't understand what you are saying is wrong with D.

What do you mean it implies that large institutions are usually decentralized? I would think that it would be implying the opposite - that large institutions are usually centralized since the answer choice says "the central administrations of large institutions are usually partially responsible for most of the details of the..."

The stimulus states that decentralization eliminates this issue of details of daily operations [or at least permits the central administration to focus on institution-wide issues without being overwhelmed by daily operations (unlike centralized large institutions, which are overwhelmed and which I see D reflecting)]....

That's why I thought D was wrong - because I thought that answer choice assumed that most large institutions are CENTRALIZED and that it ignored the fact that there may be more large institutions that are decentralized and therefore NOT usually partially responsible for most of the details of daily operations...

also the "most" used to qualify the details of daily operations that the central administrations were partially responsible for threw me off as something I couldn't confirm.

can you elaborate on your reasoning and help me figure out how I am misinterpreting D?

Thanks!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

I can see you're reasoning and I think it's a matter of interpretation, which is another reason to stay away from this answer choice. You read it as central administrations are usually responsible for most of the details of daily operations. I read it as central administrations are usually not responsible for most of the details of daily operations.

The reason I take the other perspective is that these central administrations are partially responsible. I took that as limiting their involvement rather than implying their involvement. I think it's a matter that could be debated endlessly, as the wording is not very clear what is meant.

That's a good reason to stay away from this answer choice!

[greatwhiteshark100]

What is the contrapositive of A?

Planning is maximally realistic in large institutions whosedivisions function autonomously? ?

But that doesn't sound right

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

The reason that doesn't sound right is that your statement is not the contrapositive but rather the negation.

The contrapositive would read:

In large institutions, if the planning is maximally realistic then the divisions are functioning autonomously.

Can you hear the difference? Good try! and let me know if you still need help with it.

[jrany12]

From the first sentence in the stimulus we know that if a large institution does not have divisions that function autonomously then that large institution is not decentralized. From the second sentence we know that centralization always permits more realistic planning. So, if a large institution were decentralized, then its planning is not maximally realistic. It could always centralize and thus get more realistic planning then it currently has. So, answer choice (A) is inferable from the first two statements in the stimulus.

Could you explain how you get "centralization always permits more realistic planning"?
The first sentence says Decentralization --> Function Autonom
Doesn't the 2nd sentence say: Func Auto--> permits more realistic planning & strongly encourages innovation ??
I don't understand how you're connecting centralization when the stimulus talks about DEcentralization.

Is it reasonable to conclude that since functioning autonomously in decentralized institutions permits more realistic planning, that less autonomous functioning institutions leads to less realistic planning?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

The first sentence says Decentralization --> Function Autonom
Doesn't the 2nd sentence say: Func Auto--> permits more realistic planning & strongly encourages innovation ??

No, you're right. Thank you! I think I went through that too quickly as I set that up. I'll edit my post above in a few days so as not to confuse anyone.

In the second sentence the word "this" is reflexive, referring back to "functioning autonomously."

Answer choice (A) is strongly supported by the second sentence. If functioning autonomously always permits more realistic planning, any large institution that did not have divisions that functioned autonomously could always get more realistic planning by creating that autonomy for their divisions.

Thanks for catching that!

[itzakadoozie412]

I had a hard time eliminating choice B. Could you explain how it's not provable by the argument? I thought that since decentralized institutions function autonomously, this encourages realistic planning and innovation. So if an institution is centralized, wouldn't that mean innovation is not always encouraged (or vice versa)?

Thanks!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

It's close, but not quite. Answer choice (B) represents a negation of what we know from the stimulus.

We know that decentralization encourages innovation. But does that mean that large centralized institutions are not encouraged to innovate? Isn't it possible that something other decentralization could also encourage innovation? And that something could be characteristic of all large institutions. Keep in mind that these institutions could be encouraged at various levels to innovate and that decentralization would simply be another nudge in that direction.

[tamwaiman]

The first sentence says Decentralization --> Function Autonom
Doesn't the 2nd sentence say: Func Auto--> permits more realistic planning & strongly encourages innovation ??

No, you're right. Thank you! I think I went through that too quickly as I set that up. I'll edit my post above in a few days so as not to confuse anyone.

In the second sentence the word "this" is reflexive, referring back to "functioning autonomously."

Answer choice (A) is strongly supported by the second sentence. If functioning autonomously always permits more realistic planning, any large institution that did not have divisions that functioned autonomously could always get more realistic planning by creating that autonomy for their divisions.

Thanks for catching that!

It still doesn't make sense for you. Would you please help?

2nd sentence:
division function autonomously --> more realistic & innovation.

But for me (A) seems like:
maximally realistic --> function autonomously

Isn't the formal logic reverse?

Thank you.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

I feel you on this one! The first time I worked on it, I thought the exact same thing.

However, and this is what I've learned from this question, be careful when working with conditional statements that have relative comparisons - in this case, they get us with "more realistic planning." If you have access to the following two examples, I'd take a look at:

SuperPrep A, S4, Q24
PT11, S2, Q12

They're not the same issue, but they are a good example of how relative claims in conditional/quantified logic can be tricky.

Keep in mind if decentralization always permits "more realistic planning," then any division that is not decentralized will be able to take advantage of something that will absolutely ensure an increase in the "realism" of the division's planning. So their planning wouldn't be "maximally realistic."

Does that make sense?

[skapur777]

Oh, wow. That is tricky.

So would it be:

More realistic planning> function autonomously

?

I was thinking what if a large institution incorporated some other technique instead of functioning autonomously which made them have really really realistic planning. But the author accounts for this by saying it 'always permits more realistic planning'.

ugh. is it just me or was this LR really hard? I usually only get -2 at most and this one I got an embarassingly bad -5.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

I think PT45 was tougher on the higher end. The minimum raw score for the Median LSAT score (151) was 58 - which is not as high as it's been. Whereas the minimum raw score for a 170 was 87 (-13) a bit higher than normal.

Just browsing through the questions, there are some subtle plays by the test writer, so yeah, I'd say it's a tough section when focused on some of the later questions in LR. Plus there's a lot of conditional logic in these two sections.

More realistic planning> function autonomously

?

I was thinking what if a large institution incorporated some other technique instead of functioning autonomously which made them have really really realistic planning. But the author accounts for this by saying it 'always permits more realistic planning'.

Correct. We cannot assume that if a large institution had more realistic planning, that the divisions of the institution were functioning autonomously. We could say though that if a large institution had maximally realistic planning that it would have divisions that functioned autonomously.

There's a change once you take something all the way to the top. Now the relative improvement has nowhere to go so anything that would imply that more improvement were possible would be known not to be true.

Tough one. Let me know if you still have questions on this one!

[timmydoeslsat]

Stimulus:

Decentralization ---> Function autonomously ---> More realistic planning


Answer choice:

(A): ~Function autonomously ---> ~Planning not maximally realistic


How is this the right answer? The only thing we can conclude from ~Function Autonomous in the stimulus is ~ Decentralization.

The contrapositive of (A) is if planning is maximally realistic, then it is functioning autonomously.

We have no information of what happens if planning is maximally realistic.

[mcrittell]

Stumped as well

[timmydoeslsat]

I suppose there truly is a dichotomy of centralized and decentralized. As you must be one or the other. You could not have a situation where one is neither.

If it is the case that decentralized always permits more realistic planning...I suppose this is perhaps in reference to centralized, meaning that decentralized is has "more" realistic planning than centralized. The only item it could be in comparison to is centralized if that makes sense.

We have:

Decentralized ---> FA ---> More Realistic Planning

If it is ~FA, then we know ~Decentralized

If something is not decentralized, then it must be centralized. Since decentralized is "more" realistic, then centralized cannot be maximally realistic because the other way is always more.

Is this understanding correct?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Hey Timmy,

I think you're on the right track... The issue here is that the argument has introduced a relative claim into a conditional statement. You have to be very careful when trying to represent a conditional relationship containing a relative comparison. It's not impossible, but all sorts of things go haywire.

So, we know that if divisions of a large institution function autonomously, this always permits more realistic planning. Taking the step of having its divisions function autonomously will always provide more realistic planning from whatever level they have achieved already.

If taking that step will always get them more realistic planning, then an institution that does not have it's divisions functioning autonomously, will not have maximally realistic planning - they can simply get more realistic planning by having their divisions begin to function autonomously.

I know this looks like a negation, but on relative comparisons, it works! So for example if it's true that the higher one's cholesterol, the higher one's risk of heart disease, then the inverse is true, the lower one's cholesterol, the lower one's risk of heart disease.

But be careful of them switching to an absolute claim. It's not okay to say that if it's true that the higher one's cholesterol, the higher one's risk of heart disease, then it follows that, if someone has low cholesterol, then their risk of heart disease is low. They may simply have a high risk of heart disease due to some other factor.

Does that make sense?

[timmydoeslsat]

Thanks so much Matt.

[geverett]

These questions on PT 45 were crazy! I thought I killed it on this second section. I thought wrong! haha

Thanks for the info. on relative comparison Matt. Learn something new about the LSAT everyday. I kept wanting A to say "Planning is no always maximally realistic" But I can see in the discussion of relative statements that this now makes sense.