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Q19 - Analyst: A recent survey showed

by ManhattanPrepLSAT1 Fri Apr 16, 2010 1:17 am

This one is fairly complicated and wordy. The conclusion is that failing to pursue research tends to bias university administrators against appointing people to administrative positions. They say this is true because they have a survey that shows that although professors of biology who teach but do not pursue research made up one-twentieth of all science professors, they were appointed to fewer than one-twentieth of all administrative positions.

Here’s what is wrong with this argument. It could be the lack of research, but it also could be the fact that they’re biology professors. Maybe, the fact that they’re biologists is creating the bias. This is roughly expressed in answer choice (B). If the biologists who do research are also underrepresented, then it’s not the failure to pursue research, but rather the fact that they’re biologists.

(A) is irrelevant. The argument is only discussing scientific administrative positions.
(B) is correct. This implies that it’s something other than a failure to pursue research, and suggests that being a biologist is the real problem.
(C) supports the argument. If biologists in general are not suffering under a bias, then it becomes more likely that the problem is the failure to pursue research.
(D) is irrelevant. This answer tells us why someone would not get into pursuing research, but nothing about a potential bias.
(E) is irrelevant. This argument discusses the percentage of professors who have been appointed, not the percentage of sitting positions that are held by biologists.
 
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Re: Q19 - Analyst: A recent survey showed

by aquyenl Mon May 23, 2011 11:14 pm

i wanted to see if i'm understanding this argument correctly.

so the evidence says that biology profs make up 1/20 of all science professors, but less than 1/20 of all scientific administrative positions.

but there is a big gap between the premises and the conclusion. nowhere in the premise does it talk about bio profs who do research. it could be possible that biology profs who do research are also underrepresented. if that was the case, then the conclusion that there is a bias is against non-research profs are false. that is the flaw that i see. is that right?
 
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Re: Q19 - A recent survey showed

by wguwguwgu Sun Apr 29, 2012 3:45 pm

I feel like there is another big flaw in this statement --- it was taken for granted that scientific administrative positions can only be filled with science professors?

Let's assume that only 1/5 of the administrators are actually science professors, then there will be no negative bias against non-research biologists at all, but rather an enrichment.

Is that correct?
 
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Re: Q19 - Analyst: A recent survey showed

by nflamel69 Mon Jun 25, 2012 2:15 pm

the argument made no such assumption. the argument gives us room to assume that anyone could be in these positions. IN ADDITION, even if 1/5 of the administrators are science professors, if 90 percent of them are chemistry professors, and only 10 percent of the 1/5 are biology professors, we still have reason to say they might be biased, although its not that strong. Be careful not to generalize from biology professors to science professors.
 
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Re: Q19 - Analyst: A recent survey showed

by jrnlsn.nelson Wed Dec 17, 2014 1:30 pm

This is the only one I missed in this section. I had it narrowed down to (B) and (E), and chose (E).

I now see why (B) is correct. This is a classic correct answer for a Weaken question with causal reasoning. The correct answer provides an alternative cause for the stated effect.

The purported cause in the stimulus is bolded below:

"We can conclude from this survey that failing to pursue research tends to bias university administrators against appointing these professors to scientific administrative positions."

The effect in the stimulus is bolded below:

"We can conclude from this survey that failing to pursue research tends to bias university administrators against appointing these professors to scientific administrative positions."


"...tends to...." indicates causal reasoning. Just like "because of," "leads to," "responsible for," and "reason for" all indicate causal reasoning as well.

So what (B) does is provide an alternative cause for the stated effect. "...failing to pursue research..." does not cause biology professors to be overlooked for administrative positions, rather it's the fact that their biologists (which is the inference that you have to deduce from answer choice B) that causes their disproportionate representation in scientific administrative positions.


Yet, I thought (E) was correct because the conclusion in the stimulus is based on "A recent survey..." Thus my reasoning was "Well (E) shows us that the biologists who teach, but do not do research, could in fact be appointed to a proportionate number of scientific administrative positions. Because they hold positions for a shorter time than other science professors, maybe it's just that when this survey was administered these professors were not holding positions."

Yet, given that the LSAT is a test in which identifying patterns is key, I now see why (B) is better. If anyone else has any thoughts on (E), or this problem generally, I'd like to hear them.
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Re: Q19 - Analyst: A recent survey showed

by maryadkins Tue Dec 23, 2014 9:01 pm

Be careful about "tends to." Really, it shows correlation on its own:

Rain tends to be followed by lightning. That's not saying that rain causes lightning, just that they come together.

But it's the "tends to BIAS" that means causation. It's saying A is doing the work to cause B.

You're right that B is better and I think Matt nailed the problem with E — even if they stay in those position for a short time, they were still APPOINTED to them. So it ends up being irrelevant.

Hope this helps!
 
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Re: Q19 - Analyst: A recent survey showed

by NicholasL644 Sat Aug 24, 2019 4:36 pm

I chose (E) over (B).

For (B), the magnitude which biologists who do research fill a disproportionately low number of positions is not indicated; this "disproportionately low number" can only be understood as below the actual ratio of biologists : scientists (expected if proportioned). However, the under-representation of biologists hasn't been shown to be equal to nor greater than that of non-research biologists' under-representation (in fact neither is indicated), so it cannot be determined that the under-representation of biologists adequately explains under-representation of non-research biologists. i.e. Biologist representation is low but non-research biologist representation can still be lower, therefore a bias against non-research may exist.

For (E), if biologists held positions for less time, (1 day), and other scientists for longer (100 years), than probabilistically, biologist (including non-research biologists) would hold less positions at any given time even if every time a scientist is appointed, the selection is exactly proportional to "discipline demographic." So (E) provides an absolute alternative explanation.

Please send help.
 
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Re: Q19 - Analyst: A recent survey showed

by JinZ551 Mon Mar 30, 2020 12:17 am

I think C is irrelevant too. we are not talking about "the science grant money available"
 
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Re: Q19 - Analyst: A recent survey showed

by Laura Damone Wed Apr 01, 2020 7:18 pm

Agreed, JinZ! That's definitely outside the scope of the argument. Well done!
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