Q21 - In a small town, every

[LSAT-Chang]

Hello!
This question seemed pretty easy, but I wanted to make sure that I had spotted the correct flaw. The flaw I saw was that it could have been filed against Moore because maybe that is the policy. Even if other plumbers did a bad job, the rule could be that you HAVE to file any complaints against Moore, who could be the "head" or something. So I chose (B) since I thought it expressed that flaw, but it seems like (B) is hinting at a different assumption than the one I thought of. Is (B) saying that the author is assuming that there are no other plumbers except Moore? So that is why I wasn't sure if I had spotted the correct flaw..

[timmydoeslsat]

When I first read the question, I was expecting a different flaw to be reflected in the answer choice, but B is something that is equally correct.

The stimulus goes like this:

Every plumbing complaint in town ---> Moore

Therefore Moore is a poor plumber.


My first instinct after reading this stimulus was that we do not know how many complaints there actually were. Though it may be the case that every plumbing complaint was filed against Moore, it may not be a lot of complaints in comparison to the satisfactory work Moore may accomplish.

That would have been an equally valid answer in my estimation.

Answer choice (B) also fits wonderfully.

We know that this is a small town. It could very well be the case that Moore is the only plumber in that town. Thus, it would not be surprising that every plumbing complaint would be filed against him.

Thus, you would not be able to validly state that Moore is a poor plumber on the basis of only that conditional statement.

[LSAT-Chang]

So is this one of those flaws where you cannot make a general statement because of lack of evidence? I may not be wording it correctly, but basically there isnt enough evidence to support that strong of a claim?

[timmydoeslsat]

Absolutely.

The arguer concludes that he is a poor plumber because every plumbing complaint in a small town went to that plumber.

We know that the conclusion given (Moore is poor plumber) does not necessarily follow from those premises.

You could plug in a sufficient assumption to make that work, like:

If a single plumber is the sole recipient of complaints about plumbing, then that plumber is a poor plumber.

[joseph.carroll.555]

Could someone please explain why A is wrong? If I am understanding it correctly I feel like A is saying that the argument fails to consider what the people who didn't file complaints against Moore thought of his work. What if there was only one complaint filed and 1000 other satisfied customers who did not file complaints? By that logic I think the conclusion is questionable, because it would mean that Moore could be counted on to do a good job and too much weight is being accorded to the single complaint.

I do see why B is correct and I had it as a contender, but I kind of felt like it was the weaker of the two.

[monygg85]

I am also not understanding why A is wrong for the same reasons as what the poster above me said.

Could anyone help clarify this please?

[sumukh09]

A still leaves open the possibility that there are other plumbers in the town. If every complaint went towards Moore and Moore and some other guy were the only plumbers in town then A would strengthen the argument because that other guy had no complaints and there could be more satisfied customers of the other guy relative to Moore. A doesn't really tell us anything has no real impact on the conclusion.

[tommywallach]

Hey Guys,

The problem with (A) is that it has nothing to do with the issue. If every single complaint that has ever been filed has only been filed against one guy, that would indeed support the idea that he's a crappy plumber (why aren't other people getting complaints?). The fact that some people didn't file complaints is totally irrelevant. You wouldn't expect every single person to file a complaint; most people are too lazy!

Hope that helps!

-t

[Dkrajewski30]

A. could constitute a flaw, seemingly, but it would have to state that the general attitude of Moore's customers towards Moore's work - who have not filed complaints - is positive. Who cares about what their interests or motivations are?

So in other words, according to these people, Moore gets good reviews. In which case, the author would be overlooking a relevant consideration: the consideration that people think he does good work. Of course, that's assuming that there are at least a fair amount of people that think he does good work. If it's something like 100 people who complain and 10 who commend him, that doesn't dissuade anyone of the author's conclusion much.

Anyway, the above could've been useless, but I thought it might help further explain something for anybody that may have picked A.

[WaltGrace1983]

A. could constitute a flaw, seemingly, but it would have to state that the general attitude of Moore's customers towards Moore's work - who have not filed complaints - is positive. Who cares about what their interests or motivations are?

I totally agree with this! This is why I eliminated (A). I think you could make a case for the attitudes of the people who didn't file a complaint, but of course you would also need to know the proportion. If you knew that 99% of Moore's clients absolutely love him but 1% of his clients hate him, then it would seem unreasonable to simply say he is a "poor plumber." That is why I got this one wrong! I am going to go over this question from top to bottom so I can solidify my understanding.

In a small town, every complaint filed about a plumber's work was filed against Moore
→
Moore is probably a poor plumber who can't do a good job

So we are looking for something that the argument fails to consider, what the argument overlooks. As I said, I initially was thinking that the flaw would have something to do with how many people said good things versus how many people said bad things. So I thought that the argument would mainly rely on a proportion flaw. This is what I went into the argument looking for.

(A) is wrong for the reasons outlined above

(B) I initially got rid of this one because I thought, "well why do other plumbers matter? We are talking about Moore here!" However, the big thing to notice in the argument - something that I didn't attribute enough weight to - is that the argument is NOT talking simply about all the "reviews" or "criticisms" filed against Moore. No no no! It is talking about all the complaints filed against a plumber in the whole city. This would have completely changed the dynamic of what I was looking for had I realized the full meaning of the argument's premise.

This answer choice is right basically because, had we known how many plumbers were actually in the city, we would be able to assess whether or not this argument is actually strong. Let's say there are 200 plumbers in the city and every complaint is filed against Moore. Yea, we could probably say that Moore sucks and agree with what the author is saying. However, what if Moore was the only plumber in the city? Well then it would make sense that all the complaints would be filed against him! After all, the customers would no choice in a plumber so if they had a complaint it would involuntarily be against him! (B) isn't what I expected, but it is very good.

(C) is what I initially chose but it is wrong because, even if Moore's business was very small, then having even a few complaints about him would only strengthen the author's reasoning rather than elucidate something that the author failed to consider!

(D) We don't care about tradespeople other than plumbers, of course! Let's stick to the core!

(E) Like answer choice (C), this would actually strengthen the argument rather than point out a flaw in the author's reasoning. Why? Because let's say NOT everyone who was dissatisfied filed a complaint. That would be saying that, despite Moore's small business, even MORE people than we thought were dissatisfied with him. Not good. A flaw question is generally supposed to attack the reasoning while this actually promotes why the reasoning even looks better now then it did before.

[Emmeline Ndongue]

Just want to provide some insight about this question. The argument definitely assumes the more complaint a plumber gets, the more likely a plumber is poor. This however is flawed as pointed out several times in above posts as if Moore was the only plumber, he might not suck, as we have to know the % of complaint to all Moore's cases to decide if he's poor. If there are other plumbers in town, then obviously Moore highly likely sucks.

(A) If you haven't file a complaint, we wouldn't know if you think Moore sucks or not. Irrelevant to the argument.
(E) same as (A), the argument doesn't use [the % of people who's dissatisfied with Moore that HAS filed a complaint] to decide if Moore is a poor plumber, rather it uses how many complaints there are against Moore to tell. Irrelevant to the argument.