Q3 - The manager of a nuclear power plant

[monygg85]

So this question asks us to weaken the managers claim.

The core is because of how many injuries occur on average (national scale) and because the number of injuries at his plant is less then that, his plant is safer than most others.

I understand why A-C are wrong, and I got this one right, but I don't really understand D. Wouldn't D sort of weaken it by showing that the workers have in fact filed lawsuits against the plant, even if its just a few?

Also on E, medical problems = injuries? Is that just within the scope of the term injuries? I was thinking that the terms had 2 different meanings in that instances. Injury from some metal falling on your leg and a medical problem from inhaling too much plutonium (dont know if thats even possible) or something and then not being able to breathe? So I initially paused and thought this was a bit out of scope....could anyone help clarify this?

Thanks a lot guys!

[fmuirhea]

I'd say that medical problems do not fall within the scope of injuries (I wouldn't define cancer as an injury myself, although there is perhaps room for a semantic discussion here), and that in fact it is this distinction which makes (E) the credited response.

As you noted, here's the argument core:

premise: nuclear plant's injury rate is 3.2 injuries/200,000 hrs of work (less than half national average)
conclusion: nuclear plant is safer than most others

So, the support is about the injury rate, while the conclusion shifts to a discussion of safety. What if injuries aren't the only relevant factor to determining safety? The manager's biggest error in reasoning is that he has equated injury rate with safety, but surely other factors (like medical problems) have some bearing on the plant's safety. This is why (E) works as a weakener - it points out another important aspect of safety that the manager has not taken into account in making his argument.

(Even if you did subsume "medical problems" under the heading of "injury," (E) could still work because it points out a flaw in relying on these particular statistics: if medical problems/injuries do not appear until some time after the employee has stopped working at the plant, then the comparatively low injury rate could give a distorted picture of the actual risks involved in working at the plant. Since the data only considers injuries that happen during the course of work/employment, it could obscure certain risks.)

I think the key phrase in (D) is "only a few." The word "only" indicates (to me) a surprisingly or comparatively low number of lawsuits filed. This is a fairly subtle distinction, and it's possible I'm out in left field - can any Manhattan instructors comment on why they'd eliminate (D)?

In any case, I think (E) is a better fit because it gets at the idea that there's more to the concept of safety than a cursory glance at the injury statistics. In broad terms, it falls into the weakening category of pointing out a consideration the argument has failed to take into account.

There's another potential problem with the statistics that helps to explain some of the incorrect answer choices: how were the injury rates being compared determined? Were these statistics compiled by an independent body which conducted its own analysis, holding each plant to the same criteria? Or, was the data provided by the plants themselves? If it's the latter case, there could be several other flaws: perhaps different plants have different definitions of what constitutes an injury, or different reporting criteria, or perhaps injuries are under- or over-reported at some plants. This helps to eliminate (B), as it actually tends to strengthen if it's true that the plants must report exposure; if we add that to the stated fact that the injury rate is half the national average, that particular statistic is even more impressive.

(A) tends to strengthen.
(C) tends to strengthen.

[monygg85]

Oh Ok I get it now. I simply didnt see this shift from injury to safety. I didnt catch on to it. As soon as I read your sentence about the conclusion shifting in this way I realized why the answer is what it is. Makes sense now regardless of whether medical issues fall under injuries or not.

As far as D goes, now in hindsight, I suppose its a weak answer choice, as in maybe it doesnt weaken the question as much as E does?? I cant think of any other reason to eliminate it. I would have kept it until I got to E (had I done this question the right way). Maybe someone will chime in on D?

In any case, thanks a lot for the help though.

[sumukh09]

D is incorrect because the number of lawsuits filed against power plants are out of scope. Even if it had said "many" instead of "only a few" E would still be the better answer choice because E relates to the core more directly than D does. Also, D seems to be talking about power plants in general whereas the stim is about a specific power plant. We don't really care about workers at power plants in general and the number of lawsuits they file. We only care about the safety of this particular power plant in relation to other power plants.

[ohthatpatrick]

Great responses! Let me just add a couple quick thoughts:

1 - there is NOT a shift here between a premise that is specifically about injuries and a conclusion that is more broadly about safety (even though that is a VERY familiar LSAT pattern -- so much so that I was convinced that's where we were heading until I read the conclusion.

The conclusion stipulates the narrow scope of "by the standard of how many injuries occur", the plant is safer than most others.

So, in order for (E) to work, we DO need to think that latent medical problems could include injuries.

I do not think that "injuries" and "medical problems" are interchangeable, but I do think that an injury is a medical problem.

Injuries are a subset of medical problems. Illnesses might be another.

So (E) by no means guarantees that these latent medical problems are in fact injuries, but it's possible.

(Remember that correct answers to Strengthen and Weaken do not have to, and never do, PROVE the conclusion is right or wrong. They just tip the scales in one direction or another.)

Since (A), (B), and (C) tip the scales in the strengthening direction, we only have (D) and (E) to consider.

2- As the last poster pointed out, (D) is about nuclear power plants broadly, so we have no way of knowing whether any lawsuits have been filed from this manager's plant. Also, "filing a lawsuit claiming unsafe conditions" doesn't have to be indicative of "actually unsafe conditions". It could just be an attempt to get money out of a big company. Finally, and probably most importantly, (D) does not compare this number of lawsuits to any other type of workplace.

Since our conclusion is comparative, "this plant is safer than most other plants", our correct answer will normally need to be comparative in nature in order to help us judge this plant vs. others.

Notice that (E) makes a point of saying that what it says is "unusual", therefore, it is something that would NOT apply to "most other plants".