Q16 - Private industry is trying

[lhermary]

I understand why D is right but why is B wrong here?

The government will not lose its most skilled workers if the most skilled workers (employed by the government) earn more then the most skilled workers in the private sector. All we know is the the private industries most skilled workers earn more than equally skilled workers who work for the government. There could be some extremely skilled workers whom private industry does not employ.

Thanks

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Answer choice (B) could be tempting, for sure! But the issue with it is that it's too strong of a statement. Such an assumption is not necessary to the argument. The argument is about averages - even the stimulus only goes so far as saying that "most" private sector scientists now earn 50% more than those in the public sector.

So it doesn't need to be true that no government scientists earn more than the highest paid private sector researcher. There could be a government researcher who earns way more than the highest paid private sector researcher and since this is an argument about averages, the public sector as a whole would still be paying much less on average. Give the argument the evidence, but think about the gap between the evidence and the conclusion.

Here, the gap would be that even if the government researchers are not paid as well there could be other motivating factors that would keep them in the public sector - best eliminated in answer choice (D).

Let's look at the incorrect answers:

(A) eliminates a benefit of sticking with the government sector and so strengthens the argument, but does not need to be true since it's not weighed against the salaries as is the benefit in answer choice (D).
(B) is too extreme. There could be an outlier and since this argument is about averages would not undermine the reasoning.
(C) is irrelevant. We do not care about how many researchers are in each group, just the incentive for researchers to move from the public sector to the private sector.
(E) undermines the argument from the get go and so cannot represent an assumption of the argument.

Hope that helps!

[jayparkcom]

Matt,

I applied the negation test to B and thought it worked.

If B is negated: some of the research scientists currently employed by the govt more than private.

Wouldn't this hurt the conclusion though, saying that in a way, that since some researchers are currently paid more than private ones, it gives motivation or hope (as one of the alternative motivation as the gap you pointed out) to private people to stay with govt?

[jonny boy]

I think the term "some" when you negate the answer isn't strong enough to help this argument. Some might only mean one in terms of LSAT speech. So if only one person made more than the private sector scientists, then everyone else who doesn't make more might consider leaving. This is the way I reasoned it. Hopefully it makes sense

[griffin.811]

I agree with the above. The negation of "None" used in B should be "at least one".

I think the issue is you are trying to weaken the argument, but that isnt what the question asks us to do. There are plenty of ways to weaken the argument that are not necessary assumptions.

Argument: Private sector paying scientists more AND abundance of private science jobs ---> then gov't will lose its best scientists unless gov't scientists are motivated by a sense of public duty (which they get by working for gov't).

If we negate B we get "At least one gov't sci earns more than highest paid private sci." This does not destroy the argument that the MOST SKILLED gov't sci will leave. What if the one highly paid Gov't Sci isn't even one of the most skilled? While this may weaken the argument a little, it isn't necessary.

A necessary assumption, when negated, would have to say that "despite the pay increases in private sector and not being motivated by public duty is not enough to make gov't sci leave."

That is what D does. If the gov't compensates for low wages in other ways, there is a good chance their sci will not leave.

[WaltGrace1983]

A very cluttered argument is here! Let's dissect it. I thought the hardest part of this was getting an adequate grip on the core, an absolutely essential part of fully understanding a necessary assumption question such as this.

Comparably-skilled research scientists in the private-sector earn 50% more than the govt. sector
+
None of the govt. researchers would have problems finding private-sector jobs
→
The government is likely to lose its most skilled research scientists to private-sector

The argument is making a leap from one industry making 50% more to another industry losing its employees. Now the gap when we approach it like this is not hard to find: who says that these scientists are doing it for the money?! Maybe they love working for the govt. and it gives them a sense of self-worth. Maybe they are all really close to retirement and they will lose their benefits package if they switch careers. However, I think another really important thing to note here is that phrase "most skilled." I was really expecting an answer choice to play on this because later-section LR questions such as this tend to focus on smaller gaps while leaving you hangin' on the bigger ones. So in addition to our other assumptions that we are thinking about, we should think about how "most skilled" plays into this. The argument seems to be assuming that the "most skilled" ones are going to be leaving.

(A) How does "acknowledgement" fit into this? We don't know and thus we should be really apprehensive about selecting this as a correct answer. Maybe the employees don't like receiving acknowledgement; maybe they are shy. Who's to say that acknowledgement is a good thing?! I don't like this one because it is too vague and has too many unanswered questions. Remember, we are looking for something necessary! This is just out of scope.

(B) Like Matt said above, we are speaking in generalities in this argument. It doesn't matter if there is one guy making tons of money; we want something much more general. In addition, we can check its negation and see what happens: "There is at least one govt. research scientist who earns more than the highest-paid researchers of the private sector." Would this justify the statement that the most skilled research scientists are going to quit? No, not really. In addition, I think the LSAT is trying to get you to equate "most-skilled" with "highest-paid," a trick that we are better than falling for.

(C) First of all, it doesn't matter how many people are currently employed. The point is that we are comparing people with jobs in the private sector to the govt. sector. All this is basically saying is that "there are more highly skilled research scientists in the private sector's larger companies than the govt." Big deal. Why does it justify that people are going to switch careers? It doesn't.

(E) This is a weakener of the argument! This is saying that private sector works longer hours than govt. so why would govt. researchers switch?! In addition, the # of hours worked is simply not a necessary assumption.

(D) is the correct answer here. Let's assume the negation and say that "the govt. provides its scientists with good working conditions & fringe benefits that compensate for the lower salaries." This would make the conclusion definitely not follow from the premises. Even if we take the premises as true (we should) and say that "yea okay, so they make 50% more than us," if we add that "but we - the govt. employees - have these great benefits! It totally compensates for the lower salaries" then all of a sudden it does not make much sense for one to conclude that the govt. employees will be leaving anytime soon.

Hope it helps.

[Mab6q]

I want to add to the discussion on B. While I understand the argument is talking about generalities, it does say that the government is likely to lose its most skilled research scientists. The argument doesn't say that it will lose most or some, but it makes a general statement. And one would think that the scientist who gets paid the most would be included in this category. So I don't like eliminating B simply because the argument is talking in generalities, that's just me.

There is another reason why B is wrong. Just because we have government workers getting paid more than any private industry worker, it doesn't mean they wouldn't get paid MORE once they went to the private industry. That was my motivation for eliminating B.