Q11 - High school students who feel

[yusangmin]

ok this is my beef with this question; and this kinda thing irks me for a lotta weaken/strengthens
he assumes the morale program boosted the reduction of dropping out.

so isnt D a possible alternative explanation. if they placed offices to assist GRADUATES, then that gives kids an incentive to stay in school. I guess you do kind of have to "stretch" it for it to work.

what do u think?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

I can see you on this one. But (and here's the necessary point) you're approaching this one in a way that would be rational for you or me to think about things in the real world, but not on the LSAT.

I'm sure the line of reasoning for answer choice (C) is something along the lines that those offices to assist the school's graduates would only have an impact on those who graduated and not on those who had not yet. Therefore it would not offer an alternative explanation to explain the behavior of those who had not yet graduated.

(A) offers an alternative explanation for why the dropout rate decreased to the one proposed in the conclusion and thereby weakens the argument.
(B) doesn't address the dropout rate.
(C) is totally irrelevant. We're concerned with the decrease in the dropout rate, not whether the rate is large or small.
(D) only affects those graduated and so doesn't offer an alternative reason to stay in school.
(E) strengthens the argument and so is incorrect.

Does that help you see this one is a light that is satisfactory enough for you to pick answer choice (A) during game time and pass over (D)?

[mxl392]

How is there a link between unemployment and dropout rate?

You could say that high school students can't find jobs if they drop out, but that's a stretch:

- assumes high school dropouts want to find (legal) jobs
- assumes unemployment is not only in the white collar sector

It's a long stretch.

[dean.won]

Wouldnt the existence of placement offices give potential dropouts a reason to stay and graduate since if they do theyll get help getting jobs?
Therefore reducing the number of ppl who dropout?

I chose A cuz it seemed like a clearer alternative to the morale boosting program but i am not satisfied with this reasoning

Any suggestions?

[sumukh09]

I think D) is wrong because we would have to make the assumption that the placement offices established by the high school's were actually effective in finding jobs for their students. This additional assumption is what makes D wrong since we don't know anything about the success rate of the program; perhaps establishing these placement offices did not help students as much as they expected them to.

A is the better answer here because no additional assumptions are required and we can reasonably connect the idea that students would have trouble finding jobs which gives them an incentive to stay in school.

[amil91]

I think D) is wrong because we would have to make the assumption that the placement offices established by the high school's were actually effective in finding jobs for their students. This additional assumption is what makes D wrong since we don't know anything about the success rate of the program; perhaps establishing these placement offices did not help students as much as they expected them to.

A is the better answer here because no additional assumptions are required and we can reasonably connect the idea that students would have trouble finding jobs which gives them an incentive to stay in school.

I disagree in that there are no assumptions necessary for A. The stimulus says students often drop out before graduating and go to work. To me this is saying, they drop out, and as a result they go to work. That is not the same as saying, the students want/need to go to work, so they drop out. A, to me, only applies in the second scenario, when someone drops out to go to work. So for A to weaken, you must assume that the students are dropping out to go to work.

Any other thoughts on this?

[sumukh09]

I think D) is wrong because we would have to make the assumption that the placement offices established by the high school's were actually effective in finding jobs for their students. This additional assumption is what makes D wrong since we don't know anything about the success rate of the program; perhaps establishing these placement offices did not help students as much as they expected them to.

A is the better answer here because no additional assumptions are required and we can reasonably connect the idea that students would have trouble finding jobs which gives them an incentive to stay in school.

I disagree in that there are no assumptions necessary for A. The stimulus says students often drop out before graduating and go to work. To me this is saying, they drop out, and as a result they go to work. That is not the same as saying, the students want/need to go to work, so they drop out. A, to me, only applies in the second scenario, when someone drops out to go to work. So for A to weaken, you must assume that the students are dropping out to go to work.

Any other thoughts on this?

We need to take it as given that they drop out and go to work as a result. It is not a stretch or leap in assuming they are dropping out because they want to work instead of staying in school; they would have no other option but to find work.

[WaltGrace1983]

High school students who feel that they aren't succeeding drop out and go to work

Lower dropout rate last year than the year before
→
The program instituted two years ago has begun to take effect to reduce dropouts and improve morale

This is a correlation/causation argument and one that we can weaken by doing a few things:

(1) Show an alternate cause
(2) Give an analogous situation in which the (cause) happened but the (effect) didn't happen
(3) Give an analogous situation in which the (effect) happened but the (cause) didn't happen
(4) Show that the reduced dropouts caused the program...which doesn't make sense so we can eliminate this choice.

The main assumption is that this was the program's doing. Maybe less and less people are actually feeling unsuccessful?

(B) But this doesn't have anything to do with whether or not that morale improved. It may strengthen, it may weaken. This is very wishy washy. Remember that the main conclusion is that the program improved morale and, as a consequence of that, the program reduced dropouts.

(C) This is perfectly fine and consistent with the argument. We never established raw numbers for anything and we have no reason to question the premises. We want something to do with causation here!

(E) We don't care what the program aimed to do or where it aimed to do it. We care about if the program was the cause of the reduced dropout rates.

I can totally understand the confusion between (A) and (D). They both seem to give us an alternative explanation. For (A), it shows that the job market simply was not good and therefore we might infer that people would be less likely to leave school because of that rather than some program instituted. For (D), it shows that there was an incentive to stay in school - a placement office - and that people were more likely to stay in school because of that placement office. Both are fairly compelling arguments.

Yet let's step back for a second and not overstep our boundaries. (D) caused me to think. It caused me to think really really hard (this is usually not good for a strengthener/weakener as this tends to cause me to incorporate bad assumptions).

To me it seems, and someone correct me if I am wrong, that the placement offices could have reasonably been a consequence of the program instituted two years. The way that (D) is phrased leads me to believe that (D) is giving us more detail about what this program is and what it does. Now as I said, I could be totally wrong. However, we have reason to question (D) for this reason.

In addition, the inclusion of "their graduates" in the answer choice seems a bit fishy. I thought we are talking about dropouts here.

As for (A)... Let's ask ourselves, "well why wouldn't they want to drop out if it wasn't the program?!" Well we know that students who drop out go to work. That is what it says in the stimulus. However, what happens when they drop out? They face the recession that caused a "high level of unemployment in the city." This, to me, seems more plausible. Sure, it doesn't absolutely destroy the argument but that is NOT our task.

This is not one of those questions in which there is only one clear-cut answer but I would say that (A) is definitely a stronger weakener. Anyone else have thoughts?

[equang2]

I read all of the posts above, and tried to think of how I would reason A over D.

If you look at the stimulus, it says that
"High school students who feel that they are not succeeding in school often drop out before graduating and go to work..."

D does not completely bar the graduates from dropping out and go to work. If the program in D is implemented, then the original group of students who are mentioned could still drop out and go to work. Some of them could be diverted to this program and find work.

However, if A is true, then it seems like more students from the original group would be barred from dropping out and going to work, since jobs would not be available.

Thus, the two contenders are:

(d) there is a program which takes a finite amount of people and helps them find a job after graduating

(a) there is barely any jobs available, as evidenced by the high unemployment rates

Thought about in that way, (a) seems like a more likely choice to explain why less people are dropping out.

[mkd000]

Geeks please provide feedback! Your feedback is always really helpful. (Thanks for all that you do for us LSAT peeps).

So, initially I did not consider (D). I assumed that (D) sort of strengthens the main point. Perhaps the placement offices help boost moral (for reasons previous posters may have mentioned -- i.e., reason to not drop out in case they graduate and then have help finding jobs). (A) stuck out to me as the clearly correct choice (posters have outlined why in the above, and I generally agree).

On reflection, I believe that the forum discussion above is a bit off. I think that the first sentence is background info, and the core is actually the second and third sentences. So, drop out decrease therefore program working by improving morale. There is nothing about working in this core. With this core, (A) provides a reason why people may not have dropped out. (I.e., maybe people were dropping out to work? It doesn't matter whether or not this was their reason for dropping out, but if they were then (A) would weaken). With this core, (D) does not impact the reasoning. As someone else mentioned, there is nothing in the stimulus re: graduate. Who is to say that those who do not drop out (as per the decreased drop out rate) would even graduate? Maybe they would go through high school and fail. In this case, they would not be eligible for the placement office services.

I'm still a tiny bit fuzzy re: (D).

[ohthatpatrick]

This is definitely one of my least favorite "down to 2's" to explain.

Both (A) and (D) could potentially offer an alternative explanation for why the dropout rate was lower last year.

Both alternative explanations require a number of additional assumptions to actually do their job. An easy one that applies to both would be, "Were high school students AWARE of either the recession/unemployment or the new placement program?"

The important clause that LSAT would lean on is that we're talking about "high school students who feel that they are not succeeding in school".

In order for (D) to entice them to stay, they would have to be thinking, "Well if I stick around and graduate, I'll qualify for this job placement assistance."

The problem is that these students are presumably already pessimistic about their ABILITY to graduate. That's why they're dropping out.

(A) is nowhere NEAR bulletproof, but it doesn't have that built-in undercutting logic that (D) has.

[civnetn]

I know nothing has happened on this thread for a while, but I've been studying for the LSAT and really appreciate the in-depth analysis this forum provides, so I'd like to contribute.

I have to say I also hate this question. However, I find that looking though various user posts on this forum, there seems to be an inclination to become a little closed minded and just say or think, "No. Absolutely not. I just don't agree with what the test makers are asking me to think about this question. They're wrong. This is stupid. End of story." I have to admit that I've been guilty of this same tendency. Especially with this question.

However, lately I've come to understand you just can't take that attitude, because like it or not, even though you may think the correct answer doesn't follow logically, and even though it feels good to just disagree with the right answer, if you sit down and tease out all the subtleties, I guarantee it's going to eventually be apparent why the correct answer is in fact correct.

That's exactly what I did with this problem, so here is my analysis.

Questions Stimulus

High school students who feel that they are not succeeding in school often drop out before graduating and go to work. Last year, however, the city's high school dropout rate was significantly lower than the previous year's rate. This is encouraging evidence that the program instituted two years ago to improve the morale of high school students has begun to take effect to reduce dropouts.

Questions Stem

Which one of the following, if true about the last year, most seriously weakens the argument?


1.) First you have to realize that this is a weaken question so automatically we are supposed to assume the stimulus is under suspicion and when
considering the answer choices, we are to assume they are true. This doesn't mean that information in the stimulus can't be correct! It just means that
it is possible for one of our answer choices to introduce new information that, if true, this suspicious stimulus apparently didn't consider.That is why it's
totally acceptable for the author to assume the schools new morale program contributed to the decreased dropout rate. In short, weakening questions
don't automatically presuppose that some information in the stimulus is incorrect. It could also be the case it simply hasn't accounted for some new
information, which the answer choices will introduce.





Answer Choices

A) There was a recession that caused a high level of unemployment in the city. Correct.

As others have mentioned, this recession has caused high levels of unemployment in the city and it's reasonable to think that if you were the average high school student, had low morale and were thus planning on dropping out, hearing there are no jobs would probably stop you from dropping out. After all, the whole reason you want to drop out is to go to work, right? And if you as a high school student wouldn't drop out because of this high level of unemployment, why on earth would your other high school compatriots drop out?

This answer choice presents us with an alternate cause for the reduced dropout rate. Sure, the dropout rate could have been decreased due to the schools new program, but with this alternately possible reason, the authors argument can't correctly state with certainty that the high school morale program had any effect at all. It could be the case that only the low unemployment rate is keeping students from dropping out, the moral program is failing miserably and all the number of students with low moral has skyrocketed!


B) The morale of students who dropped out of high school had been low even before they reached high school. Incorrect

It's pretty easy to see why this is an incorrect answer choice, but I always hate when someone says something is "obvious" or "easy" so I'll explain. Ask yourself what impact it has if the low morale high school students who drop out had low moral before they began high school. What if Johnny has had low morale since he was in playschool? Would that weaken the argument? It's very hard to see how. He's still going to end up and low morale high school student, which is the group we're concerned with.


C) As in the preceding year, more high school students remained in school than dropped out. Incorrect

This answer choice tricked me up at first and was the option I chose upon first taking this question. I thought, "Well if the number of students not dropping out remained the same, then clearly there's not an increase in non dropout students which means just as many students are dropping out as in previous years. Therefore, the moral program clearly hasn't worked. Obviously this is the correct answer!" This is why it's so important to pay attention to the exact language being used. Because of the time constraint, it's very tempting to just skim over the answer choices initially to see if one appeals to you. The danger here is that you're going to miss the subtleties. And on more difficult questions like this, the subtle variations in wording and phrasing are what is going to make or break you. That's exactly what I did here, I skimmed and I got burned. And I deserved it too.

A closer look at this answer choice reveals the correct application is more along the lines of, "Well if the number of students not dropping out, that is, staying in school, is like last year still higher than the number of dropouts, then....then what? Then nothing! It could be the case that the dropout rate has decreased in which case this number would still be higher, or it could be the case that the schools morale program didn't work at all and the dropout rate increased, but not to the point where the number of dropouts was high than the number of non-dropouts.

So this answer choice doesn't really do anything. It doesn't strengthen. It doesn't weaken. It just ... is.


D) High schools in the city established placement offices to assist their graduates in obtaining employment. Incorrect

Although I wasn't entirely sure, when I first took this question I had a strong feeling this answer choice was incorrect so I crossed it out. Here's the actual reasoning. So what if the high schools are trying to incentivize employment? You might think, "Well if I'm a low morale high school student, then I want to dropout and become gainfully employed. I want to work! But wait, my high school is offering to help me find a job if I stay in school and graduate! Yippee Ki Yay! I'm definitely not dropping out." If that's your chain of thought, then it makes sense to chose this as the correct answer. After all, it's providing an alternative explanation for why the dropout rate is decreasing.

Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but this is a great example of the LSAT test makers trying to trick you. They know that by the time you reach this answer choice, you've likely already considered A) B) and C). And they know that if you're still thinking intently about this answer choice, trying to determine if you should circle or scratch, it's highly likely you have no idea that A) is the correct answer choice. You're probably thinking, well hey, none of the previous answer choices make any sense. I've scratched them out and I have two remaining options so one of them must be correct. In other words, they know you're still looking for the right answer, so they're obviously not going to provide you with something that can be easily crossed out. Instead, they're going to present you with something that if interpreted incorrectly, looks like the diamond in the rough. So how are they going to do that? Well you thought pretty intently on 3 other options, 1 of which mentioned unemployment rate. You've got all these terms moving around in your head. High school, low morale, dropout rate, increase, decrease, morale program. It's really easy for your brain to connect unemployment with dropping out of school. And all of a sudden unemployment rate is in your mental vocabulary of terms you encountered in the stimulus that you have to check the answer choice against.

And just like that they've tricked you up. Because if you're reading this question and applying possible unemployment to your scenario, there's absolutely no hope you cross this answer out. They're relying on you thinking, "Well unemployment is an issue so I should clearly not drop out if I can't find a job. This placement office the high school is talking about is a real incentive!" Except it really isn't an incentive. I mean why should it be? What's to say you can't get a job just as easily without their stupid placement program? There's absolutely no reason to think you won't. All your low moral friends are doing it and they're working aren't they? You don't need that placement office at all. Screw high school. It's stupid. You could be making $$ flipping burgers at that sweet joint your buddy works at. By high school."

E) The antidropout program was primarily aimed at improving students' morale in those high schools with the highest dropout rates. Incorrect

O.k. So what? What if it was? In fact, what if the only students the program helped were in schools with the highest dropout rates. Would that change anything? I mean, not really! Maybe the program stopped 2,000 students from across the country from dropping out but they were only from high dropout rate schools. That could still decrease the overall dropout rate. Therefore, this clearly has no chance of weakening the argument and is incorrect.


Even if you don't immediately see A) is the correct answer choice, it's still possible to get there through process of elimination.

You go:

A) Hmmm maybe? No idea, I'll skip that one.
B) Clearly that has nothing to do with anything. It's neither here nor there. Cross out.
C) Maybe? Sounds a little fishy but it could be right
D) Hmmm maybe?
E) Clearly this is neither here nor there. Cross out.

So then even if you miss subtle clues, you're still down to A) C) and D)

Then you get rid of C) because you have some doubts and you're down to A) and D)

Even if you can't with certainty select the right answer at this point, you've got a 50/50 chance.

[NitanS934]

Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but this is a great example of the LSAT test makers trying to trick you. They know that by the time you reach this answer choice, you've likely already considered A) B) and C). And they know that if you're still thinking intently about this answer choice, trying to determine if you should circle or scratch, it's highly likely you have no idea that A) is the correct answer choice. You're probably thinking, well hey, none of the previous answer choices make any sense. I've scratched them out and I have two remaining options so one of them must be correct. In other words, they know you're still looking for the right answer, so they're obviously not going to provide you with something that can be easily crossed out. Instead, they're going to present you with something that if interpreted incorrectly, looks like the diamond in the rough. So how are they going to do that? Well you thought pretty intently on 3 other options, 1 of which mentioned unemployment rate. You've got all these terms moving around in your head. High school, low morale, dropout rate, increase, decrease, morale program. It's really easy for your brain to connect unemployment with dropping out of school. And all of a sudden unemployment rate is in your mental vocabulary of terms you encountered in the stimulus that you have to check the answer choice against.

I like your analysis here a lot, but I think there's an important strategic method to attack LSAT questions that should be stated here. When answering questions, you need to look for the errors in the answer choices. Your mindset shouldn't be what's correct, but rather what parts of the answer choices make them wrong. There are 5 answer choices and 4 of the 5 will have at least one thing wrong about them. If you're looking for what's right, you end up being too lenient and fall for the trap of either A or D (in this particular question). I've sometimes eliminated all answer choices and then had to go back and revisit and reevaluate the answer choices.

This is the strategy I take with LR and RC. For logic games, as long as I can prove the correct answer choice based on my diagram, I move on.