Q19 - In the decade from the mid-1980s

[mrudula_2005]

I understand why the answer is B, but how does C contribute to an explanation of the surprising survey results?

Thanks!

[aileenann]

I have to admit that (C) is not a fantastic answer. This is less direct than your typical LSAT answer, but (C) explains the surprising survey results by suggesting that employees have some warning of when their big corporate employers will be rocking the boat. Thus they probably expected the changes of the 80s. Presumably if there were going to be threats to their jobs in the 90s, they would also know. Having no news, they probably perceive no threats, which explains why they now feel secure in their job even having gone through a rough period.

This does involve a teeny bit of outside assumptions on my part, but I think most of the explanation above is propelled by reasoning off of answer choice (C).

In any case, (B) is definitely a worse answer. I've said it before, but I'll say it again - this is part of why you want to work by process of elimination. The more often you do that, the less you have to get deeply implicated in these tricky answer choices.

[mrudula_2005]

Yeah, ugh that's kind of annoying having to sometimes deal with half-assed answer choices oh well, it is what it is (i just wish I didnt have to read through ALL five choices most times)! haha thanks!

[peg_city]

Why is D wrong?

The answer doesn't contribute to an explanation of the survey because we don't know if a 1 year time frame is significant enough to impact employees answers. It is possible that it could contribute but we don't know. Maybe they didn't know this was going to happen 1 year before it did.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Why is D wrong?

The answer doesn't contribute to an explanation of the survey because we don't know if a 1 year time frame is significant enough to impact employees answers. It is possible that it could contribute but we don't know. Maybe they didn't know this was going to happen 1 year before it did.

I think you're misreading answer choice (D). In fact, (D) best represents my initial gut instinct as to why the employees in 1994 felt secure in their jobs.

My thought, was, "what if by 1994 the dust had settled? And that a survey conducted in 1994 did not reflect the turmoil that was occurring during the listed time frame?"

It goes something like this. Suppose there's a major recession and you poll people before the recession begins and after it ends and ask them whether they feel secure in their job. You could get responses where everyone feels secure, but you would have missed all the turmoil between. If answer choice (D) is true, that shortens the time frame under which the turmoil was occurring and increases the likelihood that the responses of the employees would be fairly positive.

Let's put some numbers on it.

1984: 58% feel secure
1986: 53% feel secure
1988: 22% feel secure
1990: 24% feel secure
1992: 46% feel secure
1994: 55% feel secure

the survey results missed the boat! Of course the numbers I created are just a possibility, but they represent what answer choice (D) is getting at and explains the surprising survey results.

Does that answer your question?

[peg_city]

I understand what you are saying and I thought about it like that while doing the question, however there is one problem, your answer is one possibility. The question stem asks "Each of the following contributes to an explanation of the surprising survey results described about EXCEPT:" If it had said 'can contribute to an explanation' then the answer you provided would be sufficient. However, we don't know if answer D, in fact, contributes to an explanation because we don't know if they survey was done at the same time that the turmoil was going on. If the survey was done during the turmoil then answer D would not contribute to an explanation.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Ahh! But we do know when the surveys were completed. The first was in 1984 (before the turmoil started), and the second was in 1994, which if answer choice (D) is true, would in all likelihood be after the turmoil ended.

Remember... We do not need an answer choice that absolutely explains the situation, but rather one that "contributes to an explanation." So give the answer choice some room to work with!

Does that help?

[peg_city]

Ahh! But we do know when the surveys were completed. The first was in 1984 (before the turmoil started), and the second was in 1994, which if answer choice (D) is true, would in all likelihood be after the turmoil ended.

Remember... We do not need an answer choice that absolutely explains the situation, but rather one that "contributes to an explanation." So give the answer choice some room to work with!

Does that help?

We don't if the survey were competed before the turmoil started. All it says is mid 1980's and 1990's. This could be anywhere from 1984-1986 and 1994-1996, while the survey were done in 1984 and 1994.

If the employees interviewed did not know of the future turmoil, then it would not have contributed to the explanation of the surprising survey results

I apologize for the headache but I was debating between B and D and chose D.

Thanks Again

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

If the last survey was done in 1994, wouldn't that be after the turmoil was started. So there's no way that the surveys could be completed before the surveys were started.

We don't if the survey were competed before the turmoil started.

I love the fact that you're pushing me on this one, so if you see it differently, keep it coming!

But the way I see it is that the first survey was completed before the turmoil, and the second survey was completed towards the end of the period involved. The turmoil is not known exactly when and for how long it occurred. But the notion that it was short lived would definitely contribute to the idea that that by the second survey, the dust had settled and that folks were getting on with their life.

Remember, the correct answer need not explain the surprising survey results completely, but contribute to an explanation.

[kburgess.anderson]

I have to admit that (C) is not a fantastic answer. This is less direct than your typical LSAT answer, but (C) explains the surprising survey results by suggesting that employees have some warning of when their big corporate employers will be rocking the boat. Thus they probably expected the changes of the 80s. Presumably if there were going to be threats to their jobs in the 90s, they would also know. Having no news, they probably perceive no threats, which explains why they now feel secure in their job even having gone through a rough period.

This does involve a teeny bit of outside assumptions on my part, but I think most of the explanation above is propelled by reasoning off of answer choice (C).

I actually thought choice C was strong. The anticipation of significant downsizing beforehand would be a solid explanation for why roughly the same number of employees felt secure before and after the downsizing.

[gplaya123]

This got me too...
I thought it was C...
But then just try to focus on the big picture rather than each of the answer choices....
The question is asking which one of the following contributions as an EXPLANATION.
A) this is obvious one so pass
C) Even though this one looks bad, perhaps "anticipation" could have been one of the possible ways for the people to feel calm about the problem. Like when watching horror movies, knowing something scary is coming can calm you down.
D) Perhaps, the downsizing was the greatest problem out of 3 and it was over way before mid 1990s. This could be an explanation.
E) obvious one so pass.

Now, let's talk about B.
Does this in anyway can be considered as an explanation?
NOPE.
Think about it... yes people who feel secure may think others are secure about their jobs. But the questions is... why?
why do they think like that?
This answer choice is crafted to make us think that workers have a reason to have this kind of belief... but we don know why they came up with this kind of belief in the first place.

hope this helps

[griffin3575]

I had a different take on how C could resolve the paradox. For me, it all hinged on the subjective interpretation of the 55% and 58%. We are given no substantive information on the relative weight that these percentages actually carry. What if the 58% is a very low percentage in term of those who feel they had job security? For example, lets assume that in the 1970s, before the workforce anticipated the downsizing, that 90% of people felt their jobs were secure, and this had been not only the norm for years, but also a relatively high percentage. Now, if the people in the mid-1980s anticipated that their jobs could be lost, its reasonable to assume that they would perceive they had little job security, and thus only 58% felt secure. THUS, PEOPLE'S PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR JOB SECURITY WERE HORRIBLE IN THE MID 80s, COMPARED TO THE HIGH 1970s PERCENTAGE. Now, as these layoffs are actually occurring through the mid 90s, it is again reasonable to assume that people were not feeling at all secure about their job security. All their pals are getting laid off left and right! This would explain why only 55% felt their jobs were secure in the mid 90s; they had solid evidence that their jobs were indeed threatened. THUS, PEOPLE'S PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR JOB SECURITY WERE HORRIBLE IN THE MID 90s, COMPARED TO THE HIGH 1970s PERCENTAGE. So, as you can see, peoples perceptions of their job security did not change at all from the mid 80s-90s. It was horrible in the mid 80s, and it continued to be horrible in the mid 90s. Thus, the paradox (why perception of job security did not change despite the layoffs) is resolved.

[Mab6q]

C is wrong because it does not explain why people felt secure later. If they anticipated the downsizing, it doesn't tell us anything because the stimulus still says that "these events undermined employees' job security". C seems to question this statement, suggesting that maybe people were ready for the downsizing and it wasn't that bad to begin with.

[zen]

Alright, so two surveys were conducted. The one conducted in 1984 was done before economic turmoil. The one conducted in 1994 was conducted during or after the economic turmoil that happened after 1984.

Why is it the case the people in 1994, who were plagued by economic turmoil, have a similiar perception of job security to the people in the 1984 survey when it seems like they should have a lower perception of job security compared to the people from the 1984 survey?

This is an EXCEPT question, 4 of the choices will explain this discrepancy and one answer choice will not--this is the one we are looking for.

A) If most of the people who were surveyed about their jobs in both time periods had jobs that were not as affected by the economic turmoil, it makes sense that they would have similar survey results as they did not experience the economic turmoil the same way as others with jobs.

C) If the corporate downsizing( im just calling these three things 'economic turmoil') was anticipated, then the surveyed individuals have probably already adjusted their perception of their job security to take into account the anticipated economic turmoil; since both surveyed groups are drawing conclusions off the same information( the coming economic turmoil), it seems that they could possibly have a similar level of feelings of security about their jobs. This would explain the lack of change we see.

D) If most of the downsizing was done the year after the first survey conducted in 1984, it seems that by 1994 most of the economic turmoil had stopped or was in the process of stopping. If this was the case, it seems that in 1994 people could have moved to more secure jobs by that time or could have realized that the economic turmoil was almost over and so felt more secure about their jobs than was expected; this would explain how the survey results did not change much over time.

E) If people were more optimistic in 1994, this could show that even if the economic turmoil was bad, it did not lower workers' perception of their job security in the expected way as their optimism could bolster their feelings of job security, keeping it similar to how it was in 1984; this explains the paradox.

Correct Answer:
B) The survey conducted dealt with worker's perceptions of their OWN job security, not with their perception of the security of OTHER peoples' jobs in general. Right away from this, we know that it does no help explain the paradox as it does not explain the discrepancy between workers' perception of their own job security in 1984 vs the same in 1994; how workers' felt about others is irrelevant and out of scope.

Hope that helps!