Q3 - A reason Larson cannot

[emarxnj]

I can see why D is a valid answer choice, but I don't understand why B isn't the better or at least an equal choice. It seems like its clearly assuming that only a supervisor in the shipping department can perform the task, since the conclusion is that only Franks can do it since the other two cannot.

[theaether]

Recheck your answer key. The credited response for 3 is, in fact, (B). That's the biggest gap of the argument: i.e., why can't it be assigned to Ryan, who's the vice president of the shipping department, or someone else?

(D) is too broad of an assumption and is not required because it entails "any kind of scheduling conflict." The premise reads that Larson can't do it because of an "unavoidable scheduling conflict." There's a difference there. What if Parker has a postponable scheduling conflict? He could still be assigned the task, so (D) is out.

[geverett]

Would A have been right had it said "parker" instead of "larson"?

[gotomedschool]

Would A have been right had it said "parker" instead of "larson"?

I believe so. However, that would put us in the predicament of having two correct answer choices. I think theres multiple necessary assumptions here:

1-Parker has the assertiveness the task requires.
2-The task can't be assigned to anyone other than a supervisor in the shipping department.
3-Parker has no unavoidable scheduling conflicts that would preclude him from doing the activity.
4-The assignment cannot be postponed until Larson can complete it.


I don't know though, I'm just thinking of the other possible reasons that the conclusion may not follow necessarily.

[cdjmarmon]

What does answer choice E translate to in plain english?

[timmydoeslsat]

~Supervisor ---> ~Assertiveness the task requires

All this is really saying is that having the assertiveness the task requires will have to be a supervisor.

The issue with this argument is that even if Parker is the only other supervisor in the shipping department....who cares? To state that the task must be assigned to Parker...we are assuming that others cannot be given the opportunity for selection.

[u2manish]

~Supervisor ---> ~Assertiveness the task requires

All this is really saying is that having the assertiveness the task requires will have to be a supervisor.

The issue with this argument is that even if Parker is the only other supervisor in the shipping department....who cares? To state that the task must be assigned to Parker...we are assuming that others cannot be given the opportunity for selection.

Dear Timmy,
For Some odd reason I cannot see why being a supervisor is not the issue.

The correct answer does state the link between being a supervisor and assertiveness? Or is it that being the only supervisor is not required?

Also, would then B for a sufficient assumption?

Please help.
Best, M

[alandman]

How would one go about negating answer choice (B)?

I have: 'The task cannot be assigned to someone other than a supervisor in the shipping department.

This doesn't destroy the argument though...I understand that if I turn the 'cannot' into a 'can' and leave 'anyone' intact this would work, but I was taught to negate the quantifier always before the main verb. Please help!

[timmydoeslsat]

Dear Timmy,
For Some odd reason I cannot see why being a supervisor is not the issue.

The correct answer does state the link between being a supervisor and assertiveness? Or is it that being the only supervisor is not required?

Also, would then B for a sufficient assumption?

Please help.
Best, M

Yes, B would be a sufficient assumption as well. There are arguments that have both sufficient and necessary assumptions. The trend that is seen with what the testwriters want in a necessary assumption, that is also sufficient, is when you have almost a forumulaic argument with conditional statements. This is typically where you see this phenomenon occur.

In this argument, we can literally read the stimulus like this:

Ok, Larson cannot do the assignment due to some reason. Ok, Franks cannot do the assignment due to some other reason.

Therefore, Parker must do the assignment, the only supervisor other than Larson and Franks.

So we have ruled out two people in this world with who can do this assignment. It does absolutely not follow that Parker must do the assignment, even if Parker is the only other supervisor. We have not ruled out that Timmy could do the assignment. I am not a supervisor, but who cares?

For this argument to conclude that Parker must do the assignment, the argument is assuming that Larson, Franks, and Parker are the only the people who can be given the assignment.

Check out PT 2 Section 2 #23 for a similar situation. It is an old test, but this one sticks out in my memory.


In regards to how the negation test works on this one. It is true that you want to negate the quantifiers when possible. But just because a statement has a quantifier does not mean that this is what we negate. For instance:

Timmy will walk his dog to the coffee shop where some people wear suits.

The logical negation of this statement is:

Timmy will not walk his dog to the coffee shop where some people wear suits.

To negate the quantifier in this statement would not be capturing the true opposite of this statement. You would be telling that the opposite of the original statement is that Timmy will walk his dog to the coffee shop where no people wear suits. That could never work because when you negate a statement logically, you split the world into two pieces. Where would I place the idea of me not walking my dog? It would not fit in those two places.

With answer choice B:

The task cannot be assigned to anyone other than a supervisor.

To negate the anyone in this sentence is really problematic. The negation of anyone = not anyone, which is some are not.

So you would then have this:

The task cannot be assigned to not anyone other than a supervisor.

And this is a cluster of a mess. Just negate the main verb. You can never go wrong on that even with quantifiers.

Timmy dances with some people.

Timmy does not dance with some people. (Which is saying the same thing as Timmy dances with no people).

[mkgraff]

So, after reading and re-reading the explanations here's the best I've come up with -

The core for this argument is not:
Franks is not assertive therefore unable to perform the task -> Parker has to do it.

Rather, the core must be:
Only supervisors are being considered + Parker is the only supervisor available and assertive -> Parker must do it.

If that's the case I can see why B is correct. If I got the core wrong then I'm at a loss.

Appreciate any feedback, thanks.

[griffin.811]

I would change your core a little bit because you worked the assumption into it, the assumption being that only a sup can complete the task.

I would say the core is:

L cannot be assigned the task because of an unavoidable sched. conflict, and Franks cannot be assigned the task because he lacks the assertiveness necessary. THEREFORE, the task must be assisgned to Peter because he is the only Supervisor left.

Assumptions: 1. Peter does not have an unavoidable scheduling conflict. 2. Peter has (or does not lack) the assertiveness necessary to be assigned the task. 3. the task must be assigned to a supervisor. (If the task did not need to be assigned to a sup, then the author has no justification for saying that the task must be assigned to Peter).

(A) Larson is not being assigned the task so he doesnt need the assertiveness. Peter does. Additionally, we are only told that a/one reason L isnt being assigned the task is because of an unavoidable scheduling conflict. Perhaps ANOTHER reason is he lacks the the assertiveness. we dont know.

(C) This is completely irrelevant. who cares whether or not Franks would have been assigned the task. It has no bearing on the argument that Peter must be assigned the task for the reasons previously stated.

(D) The task cannot be assigned to anyone with an unavoidable scheduling conflict, not just any conflict, as was correctly pointed out above.

(E) This essentially says all regular employees (non-sups) lack the assertiveness the task requires. But maybe they do have the assertiveness, but only supervisors have the clearance to complete the task (ex. signing for packages, making company withdrawals from the bank, etc...). Additionally, maybe they all have the assertiveness, but all have an unavoidable scheduling conflict. Perhaps regulatory training for all non supervisors (think highly regulated industries: banking, oil, defense, etc...)

[stm_512]

Why does supervisors have anything to do with the argument?

The stimulus does not say the task must be assigned to P because he's the only supervisor in the SD other than L and F. How can we assume this? Why is it not reasonable to treat the second clause of the last sentence of the stimulus as background information??

The only assumption I see is that the person who can be assigned the task is one that does not have an unavoidable scheduling conflict and has the assertiveness the task requires. After all, it is reasonable to suggest that Parker should be assigned the task because he is the only person in the shipping department that meets the two criteria and he so happens to be the only supervisor besides L and F.

So I don't understand why B) is a valid answer.

[tommywallach]

Hey Stm,

Timmy did a pretty good job explaining this one. Does something there not make sense to you?

-t

[JigyasuP507]

Argument core:-

Premises- Larson can’t do the assignment for reason X(reason stated) and frank can’t do the assignment as well for reason Y(reason stated).

Conclusion- Task must be assigned to parker.

Anticipation— First assumption could be that there are only these three supervisors in the shipping department who are suitable for the assignment. If there are more suitable supervisors for this job, then why parker? And it will destroy the conclusion.
Secondly, who said that supervisors are the only ppl who can do this assignment, this is the another gap. If there are capable ppl in the shipping department for this job, how come it must be parker? It will destroy the argument’s conclusion as well. And AC B stated this assumption, which is the correct AC.

Most tempting AC is D which is wrong AC, for that we have to go back to core. Task must be assigned to parker, why? Bcz two ppl (larson and franks) can’t do for reasons stated. This is redundant. This is not necessarily the gap between premises and conclusion.

[HeatherF897]

Hey everyone. So I too, initially saw the info about how Parker's the only other supervisor as background information and therefore dismissed B off the bat and went for E instead. Timmy's explanation for why B is right makes sense to me, but I still have two lingering questions (as I'm trying to train my brain to think the right way):

1) Was my initial judgement that the line "Parker, the only other supervisor in the department" is background info correct? If not, how does it play into the argument? I had seen the argument as Larson can't because scheduling + Franks can't because not assertive -> Franks must do it. I'm thinking that if I was right, maybe the lesson is to not always dismiss answers about background info because sometimes necessary assumption answers are not the ones you'd predict.

2) I get that B is both necessary and sufficient. But I'm still not understanding why E is wrong - to me, it looks necessary. I read E as saying that all non-supervisors in the department don't have the assertiveness for the job. Which means that no one else can be assigned the job. I get that it doesn't quite fill the gap - because even if no one else has the assertiveness, it doesn't mean Parker has the assertiveness. But we know that necessary assumptions don't need to fill the gap all the way. Can you help correct my reasoning?

Thanks in advance!!

[Laura Damone]

Hi!

The line about being a supervisor is actually a premise of the argument, but it's hard to tell that at first because it doesn't actually support the conclusion very well without that necessary assumption!

The core of this arg is as follows:

Larson can't bc of scheduling.
Franks can't bc of assertiveness. ---------> The task must be assigned to Parker
Parker is the only other supervisor.

The thing that tips me off to the fact that it's a premise and not bkgd is that we don't know anything else about Parker, and yet we draw a conclusion about him. In order to reach that conclusion, we need to base it on something, so it's gotta be the fact that he's the only other sup.

Regarding E, we do need to assume that nobody who's not a supervisor can be assigned the task. But we don't need to assume that it's because of a lack of assertiveness. Did you try the negation technique? What if there is somebody who's not a supervisor who has the assertiveness the task requires. Does that destroy the argument? Nope. Just because they meet one requirement of the task doesn't mean they could supplant Parker. Maybe they lack other characteristics the task requires.

Hope this helps!