Q24 - The shoe factory in Centerville is

[steven.eric.abraham]

The conclusion is that if the shoe factory in Centerville shuts down, over 50% of Centerville’s residents who are unskilled workers with full-time jobs in Centerville will lose their jobs.

Why? Because it's the town’s largest firm, and it employs more full-time unskilled workers than all of the other businesses in the town combined.

To evaluate this argument, it can be helpful to put some numbers to the story:

Lets say there are three factories/stores/shops in Centerville.

Shoe Factory _ 50 unskilled/full-time workers

Grocery _ 20 unskilled/full-time workers

Clothing Store _ 10 unskilled/full-time workers

Total _ 80 unskilled/full-time workers who are working in Centerville

(The issue at the moment is that we have no idea where these workers live. Do they reside in Centerville or a town nearby? Lets address that in a moment.)

The conclusion tells us that if the Shoe Factory closes down, more than half of Centerville’s residents who are unskilled workers with full-time jobs in Centerville will lose their jobs. Let us play out that sad scenario:

Shoe Factory _ 0 unskilled/full-time workers

Grocery _ 20 unskilled/full-time workers

Clothing Store _ 10 unskilled/full-time workers

Total _ 30 unskilled/full-time workers who are working in Centerville


Do not be fooled in stopping here and thinking your done! Clearly we can see that if we close the Shoe Factory we lose more than half of the unskilled/full-time workers who are working in Centerville. However, the most important piece of the puzzle is that the conclusion states more than half of Centerville’s residents who are unskilled workers with full-time jobs in Centerville will lose their jobs. What if all the people who worked at the shoe factory were from another town, then yes the unskilled/full time labor force would have dropped more then half, but not the unskilled/full time labor force that are residents of Centerville. As such it must be assumed that the only people who worked for the Shoe Factory resided in Centerville.

[martintp]

I think there is a flaw to answer D. because couldnt it be that some of the shoe factory employees some people that ear not resident of centerville. using from number above, if the factory employees about 10 people outside of the town we would still have 70 people that comprise the majority of the people in the town...

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Good question martintp!

The answer is sure, but it doesn't matter. The question is not asking for a necessary assumption of the argument. It's asking for a sufficient assumption. So while the answer choice doesn't need to be true for the conclusion to follow, if it were true, it would guarantee that the conclusion follows.

Are you familiar with the two different forms (sufficient/necessary) of assumption questions on the LSAT?

Btw, nice explanation steven.eric.abraham!

[irini101]

I choose D because the other four are either obviously irrelevant or contradict the premise.

But D alone seems insufficient to make conclusion follows and it's not perfect--what if the unskilled full-time workers in the rest factories are mostly/all from other towns?

Then even if all of the shoe factories' workers are Centerville residents and are more than all the rest combined, the conclusion "more than half of C residents will lose jobs" could still fail to follow.

Did I miss something or overinfer? Any thought would be appreciated!

Thank you!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Actually if the other companies in Centerville were employing workers who were not residents of Centerville, the conclusion that "more than half of Centerville's residents who are unskilled workers with full-time jobs in Centerville will lose their jobs," would still be true, given answer choice (D).

Having workers from outside Centerville work in the other companies would only increase the percentage of Centerville residents who would be lost.

I think the issue is that the conclusion is so highly-qualified - "Centerville's residents who are unskilled workers with full-time jobs in Centerville."

Does that answer your question?

[irini101]

Very clear, thanks mshermn!

[Daniella.owusu]

I originally chose C, but upon reviewing my answers, I changed it to D. My reasoning was that the conclusion mentions a new term, residents. I figured that it had to be somewhere in the correct answer choice and D was the only choice to mention residents. The other answer choices focused on irrelevant comparisons. I was perplexed by this question and quite honestly, I think I still am.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

You shouldn't be! Your reasoning is actually quite sound. How can the argument make a conclusion about residents of Centerville without any evidence about residents of centerville?

While answer choice (C) may sure help increase the number of unskilled workers, we don't need to have more unskilled workers at the shoe factory than skilled ones. Why? Because we already know that the shoe factory employs more unskilled workers than all other businesses in the town combined.

On a second look, I started to think about what happens if there were many unskilled residents of Centerville who had jobs outside of Centerville. But then I saw that the conclusion controlled for such a circumstance by narrowing its claim to only unskilled workers with full-time jobs "in Centerville."

Let me know though if you do have any other questions on this one!

[JW190]

Good question martintp!

The answer is sure, but it doesn't matter. The question is not asking for a necessary assumption of the argument. It's asking for a sufficient assumption. So while the answer choice doesn't need to be true for the conclusion to follow, if it were true, it would guarantee that the conclusion follows.

Are you familiar with the two different forms (sufficient/necessary) of assumption questions on the LSAT?

Btw, nice explanation steven.eric.abraham!

Thank you for posting this! I missed this question thinking I was looking for a NA.