Q16 - Professor: Unfortunately, pharmaceutical companies

[gradycampion]

Nec. Assumption question.

Conc: If gain prestige from basic research, then increased funding from non-profit seeking companies.
Prem: If funding, then from profit-seeking companies
Prem: If significant advances, then more funding
---
Gap / Assumption: That the only way to get more funding is from sources OTHER than profit-seeking companies.

D - TCR. This is the only answer that acknowledges the scope shift from "funding" to "funding from non-profit seeking companies."

I found this argument difficult if you got bogged down in the specifics -- another reason to say focused on the argument's structure. If you read the argument structurally, its much easier to see that the terms for "funding" change.

[ohthatpatrick]

Nice work!

I would slightly tweak the gap you were describing to "more funding for basic science research" (from the 2nd sentence) and "increased funding from sources other than profit-driven institutions" in the conclusion.

If you had a hard time seeing this gap, as the poster mentioned, use the structural/conditional triggers to match things up.

CONC:
~(funding from nonprofits) --> ~(achievements in basic science)

PREM:
~(more funding for basic science) --> ~(signif adv in basic science)

I'm glossing over some of the filler wording to make the gap a little more obvious (this is our goal as we read arguments ... look for the ideas that match so that you can find the dangling ideas that don't quite match).

"unlikely that any signif advances in basic science research will come out of the department"

is more or less equivalent to

"the department is unlikely to gain the prestige that only achievements in basic science research confer"

But
"if we don't secure more funding for basic science research"

is not equivalent to

"if we don't get increased funding from sources other than profit-driven institutions"

Hence, (D) provides a needed link.

== other answers ==

(A) This is an illegal negation of the argument's logic. The argument said:
~more funding --> ~more advances
This choice accuses the author of arguing
more funding --> more advances

(B) This is almost a contrapositive of the conclusion, but the chronological ordering of the events described doesn't match what the author was describing.

The author thinks we need more funding (1st) so that we can hopefully get more achievements in basic science (2nd) and with that some corresponding prestige (3rd).

(B) accuses the author of arguing that
If prestige goes up (1st), then funding will subsequently increase (2nd).

(C) is almost a rephrase of the conclusion, but it doesn't faithfully represent the 1st half of the conclusion's conditional.
CONC said:
~increased funding --> unlikely to get advances
(C) says:
~reject profit-driven funding --> unlikely to get advances

(E) Tempting real-world answer choice. Since it's implied that our profit-driven sources of funding aren't sufficient to achieve our basic science research goals, we would probably assume in real life that that's because the profit-driven funding goes to specific research that helps companies make more money (and so presumably these companies would have little interest in funding basic research that might not target any of their specific needs). However, this is LSAT, not the real world. Nowhere in the argument is the concept of "likely to benefit" the institutions discussed. So that idea is out of scope.

Notice that the 2nd sentence is conditional (unless) and that the conclusion is conditional (without X, no Y). That's our structural cue that the conclusion is trying to match up with what was said in the 2nd sentence.

Hope this helps.

[yeh.briann]

I have a quick question. For answer choice (A), what is the logical opposite of "will"? Is it "will not" or "might not"? I understand why (A) is wrong for the reason given by patrick, but I'm trying to work through the negation of this AC as well.

Thanks!

[rfrahman]

Nice work!

I would slightly tweak the gap you were describing to "more funding for basic science research" (from the 2nd sentence) and "increased funding from sources other than profit-driven institutions" in the conclusion.

If you had a hard time seeing this gap, as the poster mentioned, use the structural/conditional triggers to match things up.

CONC:
~(funding from nonprofits) --> ~(achievements in basic science)

PREM:
~(more funding for basic science) --> ~(signif adv in basic science)

I'm glossing over some of the filler wording to make the gap a little more obvious (this is our goal as we read arguments ... look for the ideas that match so that you can find the dangling ideas that don't quite match).

"unlikely that any signif advances in basic science research will come out of the department"

is more or less equivalent to

"the department is unlikely to gain the prestige that only achievements in basic science research confer"

But
"if we don't secure more funding for basic science research"

is not equivalent to

"if we don't get increased funding from sources other than profit-driven institutions"

Hence, (D) provides a needed link.

== other answers ==

(A) This is an illegal negation of the argument's logic. The argument said:
~more funding --> ~more advances
This choice accuses the author of arguing
more funding --> more advances

(B) This is almost a contrapositive of the conclusion, but the chronological ordering of the events described doesn't match what the author was describing.

The author thinks we need more funding (1st) so that we can hopefully get more achievements in basic science (2nd) and with that some corresponding prestige (3rd).

(B) accuses the author of arguing that
If prestige goes up (1st), then funding will subsequently increase (2nd).

(C) is almost a rephrase of the conclusion, but it doesn't faithfully represent the 1st half of the conclusion's conditional.
CONC said:
~increased funding --> unlikely to get advances
(C) says:
~reject profit-driven funding --> unlikely to get advances

(E) Tempting real-world answer choice. Since it's implied that our profit-driven sources of funding aren't sufficient to achieve our basic science research goals, we would probably assume in real life that that's because the profit-driven funding goes to specific research that helps companies make more money (and so presumably these companies would have little interest in funding basic research that might not target any of their specific needs). However, this is LSAT, not the real world. Nowhere in the argument is the concept of "likely to benefit" the institutions discussed. So that idea is out of scope.

Notice that the 2nd sentence is conditional (unless) and that the conclusion is conditional (without X, no Y). That's our structural cue that the conclusion is trying to match up with what was said in the 2nd sentence.

Hope this helps.

Amazing explanation. I'm a bit confused, however, about something that was stated about a previous question in this exam. For number 11 on this exam which is a NA question, you had said to ignore answers with a conditional if; however, on this question all the answers have a conditional if. I'm a bit confused then when to apply that rule and when to not. Any suggestions?

[TsaiP612]

I have a simple solution for this tricky question.

This is a Necessary Assumption question, so we need to find the gap in this question.

According to the stimulus, it gave us one important premise and one crucial conclusion. One is "Unless we can secure more funding for basic science research, it is highly unlikely that any significant advances in basic research will come out of the department", and the other is "Without increased funding from sources other than profit-driven institutions, the chemistry department is unlikely to gain the prestige that only achievements in basic science research confer."

We can find that the second premise exclude the possibly of profit-driven institutions for the department to raise fund from. Why??

So, in order to make the conclusion, the professor must rely an assumption on (D).