Q20 - Professor: The number of new university students who e

[hcxie87]

At first I struggled over the question a lot, but as I wrote down my thoughts on this post I came to see why E was the better answer. However, I'd like to see if anyone noticed anything I missed in my reasoning or another reason why E is the correct answer, thanks!

This question seems to be a paradox/resolve question and I broke it down as:

Given that: Number of new students enrolling as Chem majors has not changed in the last ten years + Job prospects for Chem grads are greater than ever
Why is it that: There has been a decline in the number of people earning Chem degrees.

A) Suggests that people enroll and then flunk out of the major. Makes sense on a first pass, but I guess the downfall is that many =/= all. It could just so happen to be that all the students that DO have the academic background necessary are the only ones enrolling as Chem majors.
B) Suggests that there's less Chem grads because it's part of a wider trend. There's no reason to believe that Chem needs to follow the trend. However, one could argue that seeing the field shrinking could perturb students that are Chem majors and compel them to drop out/switch. Is this argument dampened by the fact that Chem job prospects are great?
C) What I chose originally on the test and made sense to me, but then upon closer inspection I guess it falls prey to the same issues as answer choice A. Many =/= all. Maybe all the ones that DID choose Chemistry were sure about their choice.
D) Suggests that other degrees have equally successful job outcomes. Makes very little sense, why people would switch their major for another equal outcome?
E) Basically says first year Chem classes suck and that because it sucks, people leave the major. However, this answer choice requires the assumption that a lack of intellectual appeal would force people to leave. I find this answer choice to be only marginally better than B at best, but I guess it is the least offensive option on the board?

I'm also wondering if the "Over the years" part of the answer was important at all? At first I was wondering if it was meant to appeal to the decline mentioned in the stem, that as classes got more and more dull, more and more people started leaving. However, the stem does not really mention if the decline worsened or stayed constant over the decade right?

[maryadkins]

Good analysis overall!

My two cents...

(A) bothers me because I don't know how they'd enroll in the major without the pre-reqs. But regardless, you're right that "many" is a concern since "many" on the LSAT just means "some."

(B) is about all science degrees which too easily could leave out chemistry. It also doesn't address why people enroll in the major but then leave it.

(C) as you noted, "many" could mean 3 students here. Not a good explanation, nor does it address why so many LEAVE the major.

(D) is irrelevant.

(E) is the only one that explains why people LEAVE the major between year one and year four.

"Over the years" is meant to match up to "over the past 10 years" in the stimulus. You don't need to get more specific than that.

Hope this helps!

[wei_qi_qi]

Hi, I would appreciate if anyone could add more thoughts on why E is correct as now I am confused when could we make assumption in Lsat.

[maryadkins]

Hi wei_qi_qi, I'm not sure how to answer your question, which is quite broad, given that we've explained why (E) is correct above. If you have a more specific question about this problem, feel free to repost.

[rezamza]

I see how E could explain this phenomenon, but Im also confused as to when and for which questions assumptions are warranted. I know that commonsense knowledge and assumptions deriving from them are expected, though what might be a commonsense assumption to me might not be one for someone else. Answer choice E forces us to assume that dampening of the intellectual appeal of this major would elicit students to switch majors. It might also force us to assume that the appeal of a lifelong career in chemistry isn't worth the few years of a mundane academic experience...

Its obvious that the LSAT tests our ability to make assumptions when they are warranted and omit them when they are not, but half the time I hear people saying a certain correct answer warrants a certain assumption, but a wrong answer does not warrant an equally-likely one.

[CalPoliScience2016]

I think one reason why we can say E is correct is that it requires us to make the LEAST amount of assumptions. That is, the assumption that people leave majors on account of intellectual boredom or difficulty.

I chose C here, which I think is the closest tempting answer of the lot, and eliminated E on the first try because of the same reasons people are saying here: we are making that assumption. However, after reading the analysis here, I see that C requires us to make more assumptions than E. C requires us to assume that chemistry students are a significant component of students who are unsure, AND that those who are unsure WILL change majors (you can still be unsure, but end up choosing that major).

In sum, E has one assumption whereas C has two assumptions. E is not the best absolute answer, but it's the best of a bad lot.

[mjl246]

Like many others, I chose (c) and after reading these posts, was still scratching my head a bit at how (e) could be the strongest of the answers. What ultimately persuaded me of its correctness, is that this question is asking you to reconcile a difference between 10 years ago vs today. There has to be some new/additional consideration for why all of a sudden, less people are actually completing the chem degrees.
(b): tempting, but just because it indicates a larger trend in natural science doesn't mean it applies or explains the chem trend.
(c): like a previous post mentioned, "many" doesn't have a lot of force to it. Also, this could have been the case 10 years ago, who knows? This doesn't indicate some new consideration.
(e): I initially crossed this out, but note the verbiage "over the years...come to be taught." This does indicate a change from 10 years ago, and while we do have to make a common-sense assumption (boring classes -> people will drop out), it's the strongest of the bunch. The "cream of the crap," as I believe Patrick has said before.

[andrewgong01]

I am also still confused by "E"

I picked "D" because the way the question went was
1)No decline in initial entrance
2) Job Prospects are better than ever
----> Why are we seeing a decline a chem majors?



I thought "D" would help explain at least a portion of it by saying the job prospect argument is not "good" because even though it is better than ever other majors may have the same or even better job prospects. Hence, there is no "job" advantage to being a chem major despite the job market being better than ever

My reasoning:
"A" ==> Doesn't help and would have applied 10 years too

"B" --> I actually thought this was pretty good too because maybe there is a bigger reason behind why Chem majors are down because there is a larger macro trend in people not obtaining science degrees. Hence, perhaps factors "1" and "2" mitigated the decline and we may have even less Chem majors

"C" --> If this is true this would have applied 10 years ago too so it does not answer the quetion unless something about students have changed in 10 years

"D" --> Weakens the claim about job as I said above so if anything this gets us closer to answering the outcome. I don't personally see jobs as being out of scope


"E" --> I thought there was a scope issue because intellectual appeal was never mentioned and what if most people just prefer an easy major and don't want a major requiring intellectual appeal?

To me, if anything "E" requires more assumption than "D" and hence "D" would have been better on the basis of assumption

[s.tofighbakhsh]

I'm soooo frustrated with this question, because I got it right initially, then went back after completing the section and changed it to B at the last minute! Never doubt yourself...

So here is my breakdown and why B is such a tempting siren and why E is, frustratingly, the correct answer (and why D is wrong, Andrew):

Type of Question: Explain a Result

Stimulus:

1. The number of new college kids entering as chem majors is flat, AND job prospects for chem majors are up
BUT
2. There has been a significant decline in the number of people earning chem degrees

Basically, people are coming into college all bright eyed and bushy tailed, eager to mix dangerous chemicals and raise the dead and get paid cash money for it, but between freshman year and senior year they drop the major. Some possible pre-explanations: Some other major has better job prospects over the last few years; Chemistry curriculum just got more impossible and a bunch more people are failing out; Chem majors are all trust fund kids who don't care about job prospects and so switch majors to Underwater Basketweaving once they get confronted with real homework. It's hard to predict, really, so with vague predictions in hand let us charge into the answers.

A) As with any question that is not an Inference question, "Many" or "Some" is squishy. Too squishy to mean much. Many students enter unprepared? So what? That could be like, 2 idiots. How would that lead to a significant decline in graduates?

B) As mentioned above, this suggests that the decline in chem majors is part of a larger trend in the natural sciences generally. This reasonable real-world explanation captured me, but it doesn't actually explain why there is a decline in the number of people who earn CHEM degrees in particular. I was really torn between this and E for a long time on this basis, and eventually broke for this on the reasoning that THIS was the cream of the crap, so to speak. But this is still too vague and could easily be a trend where the overall decline in natural science degrees is, like, everyone dropping out of biology all of a sudden while all the other majors remain flat, and it doesn't address any of the given conditions (people entering at same rates, and jobs being attractive).

C) As with A, "many" is squishy. Also, if people are unsure of their choices when they enter generally, it's probably likely that many non-chem entering majors end up switching into chem, and it's all a wash.

D) If job prospects for chem are NO BETTER than other other science majors, then all things being equal, there is nothing more or nothing less attractive about chem vs biology or physics or food science. It doesn't help explain why people would move OUT of chem and into something else.

Remember that we're only given two piece of information about what would lead to the expected result (chem graduation rates are flat or up): one thing about entrance majors being flat (so same number of people WANT to do chem as before) and the other thing about jobs being attractive (so it's worth it for them to stick it out). The unexpected result is going to require the subversion of at least one of these expected conditions to avoid bringing in too many unwarranted real world assumptions into the hermetic LSAT bubble. This answer doesn't really change the state of play on the jobs front, and doesn't address the people who want to do chem initially at all, so it doesn't help explain why the graduation rate is down.

E) I hate that this is the right answer. Instinct, I shall never doubt ye again. This addresses the first point in the stimulus, that people come into college wanting to do chem at the same rate, and suggests that something has changed in the last few years to make that dream a drab experience for freshmen and cause them to switch to something more exciting like sports science or some thing. It specifically addresses chem majors, which is only done in D and E, which makes it more applicable to the situation and with less wiggle room for some other science discipline to take the brunt of the graduate losses. The job prospects were a red herring!

[tuf58975]

I think as the question stem suggested that "job prospects for chemistry major is better than ever." then we can ask ourselves "why the numbers of those undergraduate students majoring chemistry declines?" Look at the answer choices. B is confusing for me at the first time, so I got this question wrong. But later, I found out that the overall decreasing can not be used to explain the declining of the chemistry graduate students. This is the fallacy of generalization.
When we look at answer E. Yes, Bingo!! It is because of the class sucks, many chemistry students choose to leave their major and pursue a better one. That is my reasoning process. If there is anything wrong, please point out!! Appreciated

[DavidS899]

For the record I hate this question and its a trick question as far as I am concerned, but I will do my best to harp on a distinction that I didn't see others talk about as much when I skimmed above.

The stimulus is focused on a set period of time, a decline in chem degrees "over the past decade".

The question stem is asking us to resolve the discrepancy of that decline when contrasted with an increase in job prospects and a constant in those entering as chem majors.

Answers A C and D don't address the change that has occurred over the past decade, and instead attempt to weaken the argument as if few earned chem degrees vs. constant entering chem degrees and increasing chem job prospects occurred in perpetuity (as if there had always been few earned chem degrees.)

B and E both address a decline in a period of time. In my opinion, E's "over the years" is not as specific as I would have liked it if I had honed in on the need to address a decline in a period of time, but that is what they give us.

B resolves why there is a decline (it is happening more generally in all of the sciences) but does not show us how this can happen despite a constant of those entering as chem majors and increasing job prospects.

E points to this by saying first year chemistry is being taught more methodically.

[Misti Duvall]

Question Type:
Explain a Result

Stimulus Breakdown:
The number of students who begin as chemistry majors has not changed in ten years. However, the number of people who actually earn degrees has declined significantly.

Answer Anticipation:
For Explain a Result questions, remember to accept everything in the stimulus as true, then ask what's weird about this information? Here the number of students beginning as chemistry majors has stayed the same, but the number leaving as chemistry degree holders has declined a lot during the same ten year period. So what changed?

Correct answer:
(E)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) So? The number of students beginning as chemistry majors hasn't changed. And, even if students without necessary backgrounds end up dropping the major, this doesn't explain the change over the past ten years.

(B) Tempting, but we don't care about natural sciences as a whole and we have no information about whether or not what is happening with chemistry majors is part of a larger trend. So even if this is true, it doesn't help explain the change in chemistry degrees specifically.

(C) Also tempting, because it makes sense that if students are unsure when they choose their majors, they'll drop. But this doesn't explain the change over the past ten years. Did students used to be very sure and are now not so sure? We don't know.

(D) Irrelevant. We're told that job prospects for chemistry majors are better than ever.

(E) This is it. We have a reason students might drop chemistry as a major ("dampens its intellectual appeal") and an explanation for the change (the way first year chemistry is taught has changed over time.

Takeaway/Pattern:
Be careful about reading in additional information in order to make an answer choice work. Read and ask, if true, could this answer (as is!) explain what's weird in the stimulus?

#officialexplanation