Q22 - Letter to the editor: After

[ms.ingridl]

Can you please explain why E is not correct and why C is?

[demetri.blaisdell]

It's easy to get turned around on an except question like this one. Read the question stem carefully: four answer choices will weaken the argument and one will either have no effect or strengthen it. The argument core is:

Increase in workplace injury claims after the plant closed --> Workers filed claims when they weren't injured because they are out of work and broke

Nailing down the conclusion is important; the stimulus says they wanted "benefits they did not deserve," which can be inferred to mean that they were either not injured or not injured seriously enough to deserve the benefits they filed for.

We are looking for the answer choice that does not weaken this argument. We might be able to predict what the four wrong answer choices will look like (they will probably introduce alternate causes --- the workers really are injured, for example), but don't spend time trying to predict the one that will not weaken the argument. Work wrong to right! Since we have a causal conclusion, we expect to see quite a few alternate cause weakeners.

(A) weakens the argument by introducing an alternate cause. The increase in claims is because they couldn't file certain kinds of claims before.

(B) also weakens the argument by introducing an alternate cause. The employees were afraid of retribution by the managers so they didn't bring up their claims until the factory was closed and they had nothing to lose.

(D) again weakens the argument by introducing an alternate cause. Disability compensation requires you to stop working but that isn't worth it for partial claims. The workers were really injured (key), but they didn't want to stop working to receive compensation. Now that they don't have that problem (plant is closed) they are free to bring the claims.

(E) is yet another alternate cause but not one we would expect. When the workers found out about the plant closing, they became depressed which in turn made them more likely to get injured. The tricky part to this answer choice is that it brings up the closing of the plant. But if they were injured while on the job (even if it is connected with their depression) then they aren't making up their disability claims. So this weakens the argument and it isn't our answer.

We are left with (C). If most workers file for compensation the day of their injury, how does that affect our causal conclusion above? Well unless there was some huge increase in the number of injuries on the last day the plant was open, this strengthens the argument. This huge increase must be due to something other than being injured. This helps us draw the conclusion that these workers are making up injuries and filing for compensation because they are broke and need the money.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.

Demetri

[shirando21]

still don't understand C and E

[patrice.antoine]

Bump! Can another explanation please be presented on this one??

[ohthatpatrick]

The author finds it highly suspicious that there are so many new claims for job-related injuries after the factory closes.

The author's conclusion/explanation for this phenomenon? These people are fakers. They aren't really injured; they're just filing claims because they want the injury compensation now that they're out of work.

(C) is the answer because it strengthens the author's claim. If most workers file for compensation on the day they suffer the injury, then people who ACTUALLY suffered injuries would have filed for compensation while they were still working (not AFTER the factory was already closed). This makes it seem like people who filed for compensation AFTER the factory closed are just a bunch of fakers. That was the author's conclusion, so (C) strengthens it.

To weaken the argument, we need answers that contradict the author's conclusion: these people aren't fakers. They really do have injuries. There's a good reason why there was a sharp increase of injury claims after the factory closed.

(A) gives us a good reason why there was an increase of injury claims after the factory closed. You can't file for certain types of injuries UNTIL you've left the job.

(B) gives us a good reason why there was an increase of injury claims after the factory closed: people were scared to file an injury claim while the factory was open, because they saw that other coworkers got fired for doing so.

(D) gives us a good reason why there was an increase of injury claims after the factory closed: people didn't want to file the claim while they working because it would have been to their financial disadvantage to have to stop working and live off of injury compensation alone.

(E) gives us a good reason why there was an increase of injury claims after the factory closed: there were more job-related injuries right before the factory closed. Looming lay-offs make people more likely to get injured.

We're trying to answer the question of why there were more injury claims after the factory closed. The author's answer is that people are just faking injuries. (C) strengthens that.

We weaken the author's argument by providing alternative explanations. (A), (B), (D), and (E) gives us an alternative reason why there more injury claims once the factory closed.

Let me know if anything is still unclear.

[jeannekim90]

Hi.

Thank you for the explanation.

I am still a little bit confused about choice C.

I eliminated C because
So for the same reason I eliminated A, I eliminated C thinking that "the day they suffer from injury" does not have to be the day they got hurt. They don't have to feel painful on the day they got the injury.

I understood the word "suffer" to mean that a person feels pain.

Am I understanding the word in a different way?

Any clarification would be very appreciated.

Thank you.

[marshal_of_grey]

Hi.

Thank you for the explanation.

I am still a little bit confused about choice C.

I eliminated C because
So for the same reason I eliminated A, I eliminated C thinking that "the day they suffer from injury" does not have to be the day they got hurt. They don't have to feel painful on the day they got the injury.

I understood the word "suffer" to mean that a person feels pain.

Am I understanding the word in a different way?

Any clarification would be very appreciated.

Thank you.

I don't think that is a reasonable interpretation. Given that "day" is singular, under your analysis there would have to be exactly one day where they feel pain from an injury, which is unlikely.
Furthermore, "suffer" used transitively here pretty clearly means "sustain" rather than "feel pain because of." Had it been "suffer from" you could potentially sustain your analysis, though the problem posed by the singluar "day" would still apply.

[slimz89]

what was able to glean from the previous posters was that the key to this question was that the conclusion said " were just out to gain benefits they didnt deserve" so you interpet that me that they didnt sustain any injuries and they are trying to help themselves weather the job loss.

i dont understand how E weakens. all e says is that they were prone to job related injuries. it never said that it actually happened?

[ohthatpatrick]

Right, (E) weakens because it offers a potential explanation for why there may have GENUINELY been a sharp increase in injuries right before the factory closed. ("maybe the workers knew the factory was about to close, they got depressed, they were more prone to injuries, they suffered more injuries, and that's why there was a sharp increase in claims")

I think you're demanding too much out of a Weaken answer. You were saying that (E) doesn't weaken since we aren't ACTUALLY told that these depressed workers suffered any injuries.

The correct answers to Weaken don't PROVE the author was wrong. The correct answers to Strengthen don't PROVE the author was right.

The correct answers to these questions just increase or decrease the overall plausibility of the argument.

In answer choice (A), we're saying it weakens because it allows us to object, "Hey, maybe some of these injury claims were for hearing loss, in which case the workers HAVE to wait until they leave the job to make the injury claim."

Notice, though, that (A) never told us that any of these factory workers ACTUALLY had hearing loss.

So we have no PROOF that any of the claims filed from former employees had anything to do with hearing loss.

But (A) has introduced that DOUBT into our minds, that POSSIBILITY that maybe some of the claims WERE due to hearing loss. That possible doubt is enough to weaken an argument.

(B) suggests that employees might have been scared to file an injury claim while they still had jobs because other employees who filed injury claims had been fired in the past. Does (B) actually say that employees might have been scared? Do we know that any employees with legitimate injuries waited until the factory closed to file claims, because they were too scared to file a claim while they were working? No. But (B) has introduced that possibility.

Does that make sense? (E) is doing the same thing ... it's giving us a possible story to tell that would weaken.

[oscey12]

If the conclusion is that most who filed for compensation didn't deserve it, I don't understand how B weakens the argument. Even if it is alternate cause out of fear, B doesn't provide sufficient information to assume that the claims were deserved. They could have just as easily withheld their undeserved claims out of fear, then brought them up afterwards. I understand that this answer allows for an alternative (and by necessity utilizes causality): people might have feared, and therefore they might have waited, and really deserved their claim filed after closing. It bothers me though that the stem says, "Each of the following if true weakens" when B can be 100% true and not weaken anything. So to weaken an argument we only need to introduce an alternative even though that alternative does not by necessity have to weaken the conclusion? So, FACT/Answer Choice: The factory offered free cake on the last day. (assumption): Workers might have ran, and therefore they might have tripped, and really deserved their claim filed after closing. This would weaken? With these kinds of jumps it seems like everything could weaken including (C) with the appropriate assumptions.