Q10 - In order to reduce traffic congestion

[ohthatpatrick]

What does the Question Stem tell us?
Necessary Assumption (looks like Sufficient, but it says "the argument depends (requires) this assumption")

Break down the Stimulus:
Conclusion: When the plan is first implemented, the charge won't be effectively enforced.
Evidence: High-tech payment enforcing system won't be ready until the end of next year.

Any prephrase?
The Overlapping Idea in the Argument Core is "enforcing payment". The conclusion says enforcing payment won't happen. The premise says we have a high tech system for enforcing payment. The Leftover Ideas are "system not ready 'til next year" and "when the mayor's plan is first implemented". So you could anticipate a bridge idea between those two concepts. That's how a pure symbologist (just invented that) would think of that argument. Conversationally, why is the author so pessimistic about us enforcing payment with our fancy new system? Oh, the mayor must be planning to start charging people BEFORE the system is ready, i.e. before the end of next year.

Correct answer:
A

Answer choice analysis:
A) Bingo.

B) The author's conclusion doesn't hinge on how the charge affects city revenue. It only hinges on whether the charge is, or isn't, enforced.

C) The "should" takes this immediately out of scope. Nothing in the argument was in that prescriptive, normative voice.

D) Fake Comparison. The argument never ranked raising revenue vs. alleviating traffic.

E) Extreme. "Most effective"? The conclusion is only about payment will be enforced or not enforced. We're not ranking ways to reduce traffic congestion.

Takeaway/Pattern: Most Inferences and Assumptions derive from two claims being made, with one Overlapping Idea.

The Inference or Assumption is that the Leftover ideas are somehow connected.

When there is a blatantly New idea in the Conclusion, actively search for what Leftover Idea in the evidence it's meant to be connected with.

Our author had something negative to say, "when the mayor starts this thing, payment won't be effectively enforced". The only negative sentiment in the Evidence was "the system won't be ready until next year". That negative overlap helps us find the author's insinuation that we'll implement this system before it's ready.

#officialexplanation

[jardinsouslapluie5]

Could you explain (A)?
All the wrong answers were easy to spot, but I am still confused of the phrase.

What does it mean "payment of the charge will not be EFFECTIVELY enforced?"

[patrice.antoine]

Could you explain (A)?
All the wrong answers were easy to spot, but I am still confused of the phrase.

What does it mean "payment of the charge will not be EFFECTIVELY enforced?"

That phrase references the "highly sophisticated system" which we know won't be ready until the end of the next year.

[tzyc]

I'm confused...
Doesn't the stimulus say "This system will not...until the end of next year"?
Why then (A), which says it will be implemented before the end of next year would be the assumption?
I thought we simply need to accept premise, do not doubth whether it is true or not...but (A) seems just say the opposite thing...

[timmydoeslsat]

There is a distinction happening in the argument. The mayor plans to charge people $10 for driving downtown. To enforce this, a high-tech system will be used.

We know that the system will not be ready until next year.

The author concludes that people will be mass evading the charge when the plan is first started. Do we know when the planned charge will begin? We do not. The mayor may decide to implement the charge when the high tech enforcement system is ready.

There will be mass evasion of the charge without the system. But nowhere in the argument are we told when the charge would start.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Timmy's got it exactly right.

The argument tells us that the mayor will have a system in place to collect his charge by the end of next year. From this it concludes that there will be ineffective collection of this charge when the mayor begins to collect it. How is this possible? Several ways... The system may not work when it is first implemented, even though it is "supposedly" ready. Or, and this is the more likely scenario, the mayor starts collecting the charge before the system is ready. - best expressed in answer choice (A).



Incorrect Answers
(B) describes an outcome of ineffectively collecting the charge, but not a reason why the charge would be ineffectively collected.
(C) points out that there could be ineffective collection if the program is instituted before the collection system is ready - this should point you at answer choice (A)!
(D) is irrelevant. This system would actually accomplish both. Which is the higher priority does not matter.
(E) supports why the mayor would have decided to collect the charge in the first place, but fails to discuss why why the charge would be ineffectively collected.

[lsatzen]

Hi all,

I chose C when I first ran into this question during my PT, but later revised my answer choice to A upon blind reviewing.

During my review I broke the stimulus down into conditional statements in the following way:

Key: S = System; I = Plan Implemented; EE = Effectively Enforced; BNY: Before end of Next Year.

We are given as premises:
1. BNY -> ~S
2. ~S -> ~EE (I took the liberty of equating not effectively enforced and mass evasion)

Therefore:
1. I -> ~EE

When translated into conditional logic, we can easily see that there is a disconnect between the premise and conclusion. Where did the "I" come from and how can we connect it back to the structure of the argument? If we want to supply a bridge from premise-to-conclusion, we need to assume either I -> ~S or I -> BNY, in order to connect "I" to the premises.

Answer choice A gives us I -> BNY. Plugging that back into the original argument:

1. BNY -> ~S
2. ~S -> ~EE
(Assumption: I -> BNY)

Chained together we get: I -> BNY -> ~SS -> ~EE

Therefore:
I -> ~EE

To apply the negation test, we negate I -> BNY, resulting in ~(I -> BNY), which destroys the link or space in-between the premise and conclusion.

[lsatzen]

Is C a trap answer in the sense that it plays on peoples tendencies to automatically fill in the gap for the arguer?

When I first read the argument, my immediate thought was, well if an implication of implementing the plan is that the payment will NOT be effectively enforced, then maybe the mayor should NOT implement his plan until it CAN be effectively enforced.

This led me to choose C in my moment of confusion.

EDIT: I see now why answer choice C is incorrect. All answer choice C does is support the conclusion by itself. It is merely reinforcing the idea between implementing the plan, and not being effectively enforced. And even further, it doesn't even mention "S" or "BNY", so we could conceivably arrive at the correct answer through POE alone. The correct answer has to address the issue of "when" the event will occur, we need to know when it will happen.

When we negate A, we get "The mayor's plan to charge for driving downtown will NOT be implemented before the end of next year". If that's the case then we know that the plan might not be implemented at all, or if it is implemented then it must occur after the end of next year. If either of these two are a possibility, then it undermines the arguments conclusion because we have no idea how the implementation of the plan relates to the systems readiness anymore.

Is this the correct way to analyze this question?

[christine.defenbaugh]

I love that you're really getting into the meat of this question, goh2!

However, while your conditional analysis is essentially accurate, I think you're making this question way harder than it needs to be. All of that formal breakdown of the implicit conditional relationships is not necessary to understand what's really going on in this argument.

Let me walk you through what my real-time distillation thought process would look like for this.

Everything up until the last sentence is giving me the 'what's happening now', facts on the ground. Cool. Those are all premises. The final sentence shifts gears into conclusion. Let me sort out the facts.

Mayor's got a cool plan. There's a nifty enforcement thing. Nifty enforcement thing isn't ready yet, won't be til end of next year. Until we get that nifty enforcement thing, everything sucks.

Alright, so for now, everything sucks; when we get the nifty enforcement thing, everything will be awesome.

Now, what's the conclusion saying? WHEN the mayor's plan starts, things will suck. Wait - do we know WHEN the mayor's plan will start? If it starts BEFORE the nifty enforcement thing, sure, things will suck. But if it starts AFTER the nifty enforcement thing, things will be awesome.

Ah ha! This argument is assuming the mayors plan starts BEFORE the nifty enforcement thing.

Understanding the basic timeline of known events is more important here than formalizing everything into strict conditional logic. In fact, the strict conditional logic might get in the way of your having an essential understanding of this story.

Is C a trap answer in the sense that it plays on peoples tendencies to automatically fill in the gap for the arguer?

When I first read the argument, my immediate thought was, well if an implication of implementing the plan is that the payment will NOT be effectively enforced, then maybe the mayor should NOT implement his plan until it CAN be effectively enforced.

This led me to choose C in my moment of confusion.

I actually think you're less 'filling in the gap' and more 'taking the argument to the next step'. You read that in a certain situation, there wouldn't be effective enforcement. You immediately thought 'well, then we shouldn't do that!'. That's a natural real-life reaction, but that's an inference we can't necessarily make! Nothing in the argument talks at all about things we should or shouldn't do. That's ALL YOU, bringing your opinions about what things we should or shouldn't do to the table!

Notice that the premises are all just factual statements: we get a timeline of events, and that's pretty much it. The conclusion shifts to make a conditional prediction about the future. No where in any of this is the idea of "should" (recommendation).

EDIT: I see now why answer choice C is incorrect. All answer choice C does is support the conclusion by itself. It is merely reinforcing the idea between implementing the plan, and not being effectively enforced. And even further, it doesn't even mention "S" or "BNY", so we could conceivably arrive at the correct answer through POE alone. The correct answer has to address the issue of "when" the event will occur, we need to know when it will happen.

When we negate A, we get "The mayor's plan to charge for driving downtown will NOT be implemented before the end of next year". If that's the case then we know that the plan might not be implemented at all, or if it is implemented then it must occur after the end of next year. If either of these two are a possibility, then it undermines the arguments conclusion because we have no idea how the implementation of the plan relates to the systems readiness anymore.

Is this the correct way to analyze this question?

You can absolutely eliminate (C) in POE, but I would focus on the fact that it drags in recommendation language, which we don't need.

Using the negation test to prove why (A) is correct, though, is golden!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the essential breakdown, and on noticing the shift in (C) to recommendation language!

[lsatzen]

Hi Christine,

Thank you so much for writing up such a detailed response. That real-time run through was especially useful in terms of how to become better at organizing my processing of stimulus information. I need to be able to trust my abilities of boiling down the argument to its essentials and not getting caught up in the muck and mire of the verbosity within the argument.

In regards to your analysis of AC (C), I want to thank you again for helping me expose a constant pattern that I was not explicitly aware of. I was actually synthesizing the information in the stimulus as a block of information and "taking the argument to the next step". I made the same exact mistake twice in PT-65. I get so caught-up with trying to make sense of the argument and its content that I forget that my actual task is just to analyze the structure or logical form.

Here is my re-attempt at explaining answer choice (C) in light of the advice you have given me.

Re-visiting answer choice (C), it seems totally obvious if we pay attention to the structural cues given within the stimulus. The premises are just factual events, but the author then moves to make a conditional prediction. But we do not know whether it will trigger or not trigger, based on the information given in the stimulus. So we need an answer choice that will either uphold the possibility of the conditional prediction being possible or an answer choice that triggers the conditional. Answer choice (A) seems to do the latter.

Answer choice (C) is a normative statement / recommendation that doesn't necessarily do anything positive or negative for the argument. It doesn't seem to bear any relevance to the argumentative structure at all now that I think about it.

Please do know that I have taken your advice to heart and am trying to find the happy medium between overly thorough (and potentially dangerous) review and deliberate and efficient review!

[ganbayou]

Timmy's got it exactly right.

The argument tells us that the mayor will have a system in place to collect his charge by the end of next year. From this it concludes that there will be ineffective collection of this charge when the mayor begins to collect it. How is this possible? Several ways... The system may not work when it is first implemented, even though it is "supposedly" ready. Or, and this is the more likely scenario, the mayor starts collecting the charge before the system is ready. - best expressed in answer choice (A).



Incorrect Answers
(B) describes an outcome of ineffectively collecting the charge, but not a reason why the charge would be ineffectively collected.
(C) points out that there could be ineffective collection if the program is instituted before the collection system is ready - this should point you at answer choice (A)!
(D) is irrelevant. This system would actually accomplish both. Which is the higher priority does not matter.
(E) supports why the mayor would have decided to collect the charge in the first place, but fails to discuss why why the charge would be ineffectively collected.

I think I'm confused because the second sentence says "Payment of this charge will be enforced using highly sophiscated system" and am not sure how it is possible to have the option one in the diagram-in other words, to charge, the system is required, isn't it? Is it possible to charge without the system?? If so, wouldn't it contradict this second statement?
And because of this, I was not sure how it is possible to establish the conclusion too...I thought if the plan is implemented, it means it will have the system, and because they have the system, they will be able to effectively charge the fee.
What did I miss here?

Thank you

[ohthatpatrick]

I think there's a distinction between how payment is enforced and how it's collected.

It's not like this computer camera system would be walking up to people's cars and collecting the $10, even once the system is in place.

You would pay online or by check or what have you, and then cameras in the downtown area would scan your car and use its registration to look up whether you'd paid.

Whatever system is in place, whatever the gap is between how the money is collected vs. enforced, the sentence "without this system, mass evasion of the charge will result" implies that there is a period of time during which you are responsible for paying the charge but capable of evading it.

[phoebster21]

I'm confused...
Doesn't the stimulus say "This system will not...until the end of next year"?
Why then (A), which says it will be implemented before the end of next year would be the assumption?
I thought we simply need to accept premise, do not doubth whether it is true or not...but (A) seems just say the opposite thing...

Sometimes it kind of helps to understand the argument by looking at the conclusion via the ALTERNATIVE choice/method/plan (whatever it's using).

So, for example, HAD the conclusion said "Therefore, when the mayor's plan is first implemented, payment of the charge will be effectively enforced."

THEN when would you HAVE to be true FOR payment to BE effectively enforced? It would HAVE to be implemented ONLY AFTER that sophisticated system is developed.

So alternatively, in the real stimulus, the conclusion says that payment will NOT be effectively enforced." and we know that that's because this sophisticated system won't be developed, so we can conclude that the plan is coming out before that system is created (which, is just "before the end of next year")

[Yit HanS103]

Hi, I'm still very confused about this question.
I was between A and C.
when I negate C "the charge SHOULD NOT be implemented as soon as the system is ready" that destroys the argument because is basically telling me that the system won't be implemented. However, the one thing I did not like about C was the word "should" (recommendation).
A sounds like a premise booster to me, when I negated it, it doesn't destroy the argument, unless I'm missing something.

can anyone explain this to me, please?

thank you!!!

[ohthatpatrick]

This is Sufficient Assumption, where you would never ever negate anything.
(you only do that on Necessary Assumption ... negating is a way to check whether something is really required/necessary)

Your job in Sufficient Assumption is to PROVE the conclusion, by adding the correct answer choice to the facts we were provided with.

Here's how that works with (A).

(A) The $10 charge for downtown driving will be implemented before the end of next year.
EVIDENCE:
The automatic system of enforcing payment won't be ready until the end of next year, though, and without that system, mass evasion of the charge will result.

CONCLUSION:
Thus when the $10 charge first starts, it won't be effectively enforced

That is mathematically proven, as long as we accept that "mass evasion ≠ effective enforcement"



(C) doesn't tell us when we'll start implementing the plan to charge $10 for downtown driving, so we have no way of judging whether the conclusion is true (let alone of proving it's true).

The conclusion is making a specific temporal claim: "When X happens, Y will happen."
X = $10 charge first implemented
Y = mass evasion of charge

The evidence tells us that when Z happens, Y will happen.
Z = enforcement system not in place
Y = mass evasion of charge

The gap is us needing to know that "When X happens, Z happens".

In other words, we need to know that "when the plan is first implemented, the enforcement system will not yet be in place".

Hope this helps.

[QIAOH648]

I really found this question difficult. May I understand in the following way?

Premise: The system is not ready before the end of next year. Without this system, there is no charge. The issue is before the end of next year, there is no charge.

Conclusion: Mayor's first implemented plan of charge will not be efficiently enforced (No charge before the end of next year)

Assumption:
Mayor's implementation plan of charge has to be enforced before the end of next year.

[Laura Damone]

Hi Qiaoh648!

From looking at your summary, I think you would benefit from a different approach to breaking down the stimulus. In your summary, you are paraphrasing. But when you paraphrase, you are losing some relevant information and also adding in information that shouldn't be there. Here's a different approach to try.

Step 1: Instead of paraphrasing, state the pieces of the argument core verbatim.

Premises: The system will not be ready until the end of next year. Without the system, mass evasion of the charge will result.

Conclusion: When the mayor's plan is first implemented, payment of the charge will not be effectively enforced.

Step 2: Look for a concept that the conclusion talks about but that the premises do not.

In this conclusion, we're talking specifically about enforcement when the mayor's plan is first implemented. That timeframe isn't addressed by the premises.

Step 3: Ask yourself "What is the argument assuming about that concept?"

When the argument concludes that payment won't be effectively enforced when the plan is first implemented, it's assuming that the plan will be implemented before the system is ready.

Sticking as closely to the text as possible will help you stay on track and spot important features of arguments like term shifts and new information introduced in the conclusion.

Hope this helps!

[QIAOH648]

Thank you very much for all your replies. I will closely study for your notes. Great thanks ~~~


Best regards,

QH

[smiller]

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