Q10 - Dairy farmer: on our farm

[cyruswhittaker]

Can you go over number 10? I chose B after elimination (though initially I did eliminate it), because it conformed most with the stimulus.

The hesitancy I have with this choice is "..for the sake of.." because the stimulus does not indicate that this is the reason for the farming practices, only a consequence (last sentence).

Thanks!

[giladedelman]

Very nice post. I agree with you that we can't know for certain that this improvement was introduced "for the sake of maximizing profits." However, we are told that the changes in question were made in order to increase blood flow to the udder, which would lead to increased profits. So it's a small leap to infer that the mattresses were introduced with an eye to that ultimate result of increased profits.

That would make (B) correct, because the mattress improvement is an example of a profit-oriented farming practice that also enhances animals' living conditions.

That said, because this is not a 100% provable inference, working from wrong to right is absolutely essential. We need to get rid of the answers that we know for sure can't be inferred from the given statements.

(A) is not supported. We can't infer that farmers' knowledge of the physiology of milk production is necessary for dairy cows to have comfortable living conditions. The most we could say is that this knowledge could maybe help improve cows' living conditions.

(C) is out of scope. More than other farm animals?!

(D) is also out of scope. Productivity should be increased? The quality of the product? Neither of these topics come up at all in the stimulus.

(E) is tempting, but is too extreme. We could infer that concern for cows' environment and maximizing profits are not mutually exclusive, but that's a far cry from saying that the former is the key to achieving the latter. Who knows how important it is compared to other concerns?

Does that make this one any clearer for you?

[LSAT-Chang]

Hey Gilad,
I chose (E) for this because although I thought the word "key" was extreme, I had issues with (B) on two counts:

1. "sake of" is also extreme
2. "farm animals"??? we are only talking about cows

I normally don't have trouble with inference questions, but these "proposition" questions always throw me off for some reason -- I don't know how to approach these (it seems more like a principle question). Even looking at answer choice (B), it's so broad in a way that it brings in "farm animals"..

Any thoughts??

[tplan21]

I completely agree with changsoyeon, does anyone have an explanation for us? Please!

[giladedelman]

Hey guys,

Good discussion. Listen:

(E) is a disaster. It's saying that concern for the cows' environment is the key -- i.e., the most important thing -- for maximizing profits. Do we know it's the most important? Do we know it's even a little important? Do we know it helps at all? No, we don't. There could be a dozen more important things; this could actually be a mistake. So there is zero support for this answer.

(B), on the other hand, has some support. We are told that the special mattresses are intended to increase blood flow, and the only thing we are told about increasing blood flow is that it would increase profits. So it's probably the case that the mattresses were introduced for the purpose of raising profits. 100% sure? No. But better than nothing.

As for the farm animals point, be careful here. Sometimes it's okay to go from a specific example to a more general term. Like if I say, I love bananas, you could infer that I love some fruits. The same thing is happening here: because we're improving the comfort of cows, we can say something about at least some of the times we try to improve the living conditions of farm animals. Cows are an example of farm animals just like bananas are an example of fruit.

Make sense?

[minhtientm249]

I chose B because I thought it's a must be true question. "sake of" might be extreme but the whole statement is supported by the stimulus. However, there's no points made in the stimulus about any "key"

[timmydoeslsat]

I do not find "sake of" extreme. I find complete support for it in the stimulus.

The more important word in this answer choice (B) to me is the word can. Such a soft word, we could have something occur 1 time in a million and we would be able to use the word can for that occurrence.

So we know that increasing comfort for cows lead to increased profits. Therefore, we do know for a fact that this is one way that increased profits improved the living conditions of farm animals, in this case cows.

[giladedelman]

Whoops, my last post said that (A) had some support, but I meant (B). I've made the edit above.

[alovitt]

B is totally reversed. Why is it acceptable to have a reversed principle here, but in other instances a reversed principle would be wrong?

[shirando21]

yeah, that's what I am thinking about too...

changes in improving cow's environmental conditions were intended to increase blood flow to the udder, which would boost milk output,
thus increase profits.

Doesn't that mean the motivation was to increase blood flow, and increase profits is an effect?

[sh854]

Can someone please help me with this question? I do not understand why B is correct. Isn't it the backwards of the stimulus?

[rinagoldfield]

Thanks guys!

(B) Doesn’t reverse the stimulus, because there is no conditional logic to reverse there. What we know from the stimulus is that stuff that increases profits also helps cows’ comfort. We don’t know whether that stuff was adopted in order to increase profits or in order to make the cows comfortable. (B) does add that detail, but it is otherwise supported.

[jiangziou]

(B) states that Farming practices introduced for the sake of maximizing profits can improve the living conditions of farm animals.

I think "can improve" is different with "improve". The latter cannot be generalized.

In this question, cows can be generalized to farm animals.

[Michael2375]

I also chose E over B as I thought the "Animals" term ( we were only talking about cows) made it out of scope. Would it be fair to say that E ( as Admiral Akbar would say is ( A Trap!) ? Any more insight on how to spot that trap and avoid it? When does the leap from a specific type of animal or object ( Canoes to Boats in General for example) make sense?

[ohthatpatrick]

On every Inference question, we're looking for the most provable answer choice.

The question stem will either say that answer choice
- must be true
- is most supported
- is best illustrated

It's easier to prove a weak claim than a strong claim.

So we always favor weaker language in answer choices and are more nervous about strong language (for Inference questions in both LR and RC).

(B) has safe language ... "X can improve Y".

To prove that claim, we only need ONE example of when X improved Y.

The paragraph we read was an example of when a farming practice that would make us more profitable would also improve the living condition of a farm animal.

You were uncomfortable with the specific to general move of "cows" to "farm animal", but this correct answer goes from specific to general by moving from "give cows special sleeping mattresses" to "a farming practice introduced for the sake of profitability".

If I know that some cows are named Milksy, then I can safely claim that some mammals are named Milksy.

If I know that some mammals are named Banksy, then I cannot safely claim that some cows are named Banksy.

In the first case, I know that Milksy the cow belongs to the category of mammal.

In the second case, I don't know whether Banksy the mammal belongs to the category of cow.

(E) has very strong language ... THE KEY to maximizing profits.
Not even something safer like "A key" .... no, caring for cows' environment is THE key!

This answer goes out on a limb and makes it sound like caring for the cows' environment is the most important consideration. Just because it's the only thing we discussed in the paragraph doesn't mean that it's the most important consideration.

[egonza14]

So, I’m a little lost here. I tried to attack this as a Principle Question. I took the bait of E) attempting to match up known terms. The rest of the thread has seemed to identify this as an Inference type question.

Am I missing something huge Here?

[AlisaS425]

(E) has very strong language ... THE KEY to maximizing profits.
Not even something safer like "A key" .... no, caring for cows' environment is THE key!

This answer goes out on a limb and makes it sound like caring for the cows' environment is the most important consideration. Just because it's the only thing we discussed in the paragraph doesn't mean that it's the most important consideration.

I would like to add something about (E), and would appreciate if some LSAT geeks could give me feedback!

I was choosing between (B) and (E), and chose (B) in the end because (E) seems too strong.

During review, I compared (B) with (E) and found that while (B) says "...improve the living conditions of farm animals", (E) says "having concern for dairy cows' environment". (E) seems to focus on whether the farmer has concern for cows, but even if someone has concern for cows' environment and ends up doing nothing to improve their environment, then the profits wouldn't increase, would they?

From the stimulus, it seems like it's the farmer's action to improve cows' environment (e.g. special mattresses) that leads to increased profits, not the farmer's concern for cows!

Does my reasoning hold up?