Q7 - Workers may complain about

[ebrickm2]

I despise this question.

Conclusion: assumption that job-related stress is most serious problem is not warranted.

Premise: Stress not high on list.
Premise: Survey places boredom at top.

B is the correct answer, but I have objections to it. Having stress related symptoms doesn't mean that you necessarily are stressed.

Stress related symptoms are perhaps necessary for one to be stressed, but the presence of them doesn't make it sufficiently so!

hallllp!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

It doesn't need to be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that having stress-related symptoms does imply that one is stressed.

Let's be careful with the question type. They are asking us to weaken the argument's conclusion, not destroy it. Weakening (and strengthening questions for that matter) just ask you to find something that makes the conclusion less likely (or more likely in the case for strengthening questions) to be true.

The assumption of the argument is that if one is bored, that one is not stressed.

Answer choice (B) attacks this assumption directly and is therefore the correct answer.

(A) is irrelevant because it does not relate to stress.
(C) is irrelevant because it does not call into question the validity of those experiences.
(D) is irrelevant because it does not relate to stress.
(E) is irrelevant because it does not relate to stress.

I hope this helps!

[tamwaiman]

Sorry I still can't accept (B).
Since the stimulus says "but stress is not high on the list." and the question stem asks the test taker to weaken the assumption " that job-related stress is the most serious problem for workers in the corporate world is thus simply not warranted.", (C), which implies that the experiences that have happened most recently is not the most serious ones, weakens the conclusion.

There might be another assumption: the workers think the most recently problem is the most serious problem.

It seems that (B) destroys the premise because even if workers exhibit more stress-related symptoms, perhaps 90%, the MOST serious problem still is boredom but not stress.

Thank you.

[manoridesilva]

Sorry I still can't accept (B).
Since the stimulus says "but stress is not high on the list." and the question stem asks the test taker to weaken the assumption " that job-related stress is the most serious problem for workers in the corporate world is thus simply not warranted.", (C), which implies that the experiences that have happened most recently is not the most serious ones, weakens the conclusion.

Thank you.

I stand to be corrected on my logic, but the way I read this, B raises the possibility that there is a causal link between stress and boredom. If the not-bored people show fewer symptoms of stress than the bored people, I start to wonder if stress isn't perhaps the underlying problem. Ie, take away the stress and the boredom goes away. Of course, it could be the other way around, that boredom causes stress. Or it could simply be a correlation. But the fact that the possibility has been raised that stress could be the cause of boredom is enough for one to become skeptical about the conclusion. (Why? Because the possible underlying cause, ie stress, must be at least as important as its potential effect, ie boredom.) It's not necessary to totally destroy the conclusion, just raised doubt over its correctness. Hope this helps rather than confuses.

[geverett]

Yea I'm still finding this to be somewhat dubious even with the low standards of weaken and strengthen questions. Exhibiting stress related symptoms is still pretty vague as one could exhibit the symptoms and not be stressed at all. However, C seems to raise the possibility that the author of the stimulus is basing a pretty broad conclusion off a survey that might be too narrow in scope to merit the conclusion. Thoughts?

[Raiderblue17]

Id like to weigh in as well:

To me, the author is using his survey to justify the fact that Stress isn't the number 1 prolbem, boredom is.

So what weakens this? The idea that the survey was just a momentary sample, not a truly representative sample. So maybe today I'm bored, but 350 other days of the year, I'm super stressed.

B: I just CANNOT see how this is correct. Yes the idea that Boredom brings about stress, but still that would put boredom as a cause. Thus proving his statement.

HELP PLEASE

[u2manish]

Hi there,

Can some one please helps us notate the answer choice B? I have gathered that this form of answer choice very common sort of things. I was wondering if I could grasp it visually using formal notation that could help me in applying it straightaway in other questions?
Cheers,M

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Thanks u2manish for posting your question!

Conditional logic is a heavily tested concept and so you should prepare yourself with training on it. However, you also need to know when to use it and when not to.

Here are four hints that when you sum up all the indicators, you make a decision whether that'll be a good approach for you.

1. Conditional statements. Words like "if" "when" "all" "any" "each" "unless" etc. all introduce conditional statements. Without them it's really tough to image them testing conditional logic. Quantifications can also provide language cues that quantified logic is being tested. Words like "some" "many" "a few" "most" "a majority" etc. all introduce quantified statements.

2. Question Type. While conditional logic is not tested only in the following question types, it does seem to appear more frequently in them. Must be True, Must be False, Sufficient Assumption, Match the Reasoning/Flaw, Principles.

3. Question Location. This concept is considered by the LSAT writer to be more advanced and so typically appears more heavily later in the section. I typically see 1 question somewhere between 7-11, 1 question between 12-16, and another 3 questions between 17-end. About 20% of LR questions test conditional logic, making it the most frequently tested concept, with causation closely behind.

4. Repeated Terms. Here's an example of why repeated terms are likely. In the argument all A's are B's, and all B's are C's, therefore it must be true that all A's are C's. Notice the linking terms in the evidence are mentioned twice, and then the terms in the evidence that are only mentioned once, then appear again in the conclusion. Valid arguments typically have each term mentioned twice.

So back to your question. I would not use a formal notation to visualize answer choice (B). You could force into one such as "if you are a worker who complains about boredom, then you have more stress-related symptoms than someone who claims their job is interesting." The trigger is simple - CB (complains about boredom.

CB ---> ?

But what's the outcome. That's trickier because of the relative comparison - which is something I try to avoid notating (it usually just gets me in trouble).

Since answer choice (B) involves a relative comparison, the question doesn't seem to be filled with conditional statements, the question type is not heavily used to test conditional logic, and the location of the question so early, I think I would avoid diagramming it.

[inesa909]

I think that it was very easy to get tripped up by C) because one would automatically assume that boredom would have been the recent phenomena that would have tainted the sample. However, there is no indication that boredom would have been the most recent phenomena.
I believe that A) was also an attractive answer choice that was also getting at the issue of a tainted sample by introducing the idea that there would be a response bias by individuals. (Even though the fact that the sample size used for A) would still be too small and it indicates that those people are less likely to complain about EITHER stress OR boredom)

The most confusing factor of this question is that it involves a survey so the test-taker is on the hunt for an AC that would attack the methods of the survey (such as taking it at a rather "boring" time, or the response bias that may occur) rather than looking at another cause that would have influenced how people responded.

Since the conclusion is that job-related stress is not the most serious problem is what needs to be weakened, B) is the only answer choice that does that by suggesting a correlation between boredom and stress.
Hope that helps!

[mjacob0511]

The conclusion is that job related stress is not the MOST serious problem. The fact that boredom was reported by a majority of people to be at the top of their last and according to B these people exhibit more stress symptoms than those who find it interesting, seems both vague and irrelevant to me.

1) We are comparing them to people who find work interesting. People can find work interesting and can still exhibit stress related symptoms. Others can be bored and not get stressed from it. How does this show you that stress related symptoms can be the MOST serious problem?

2) Workers... exhibit MORE, how does that imply it can even possibly be the MOST serious problem?

[WaltGrace1983]

I'm going to do my best with this one but if an instructor would be so kind to chime in I think we'd all appreciate it .

Stress is not high on the list of things workers complain about
+
Majority actually placed boredom at the top of their list of complaints
→
Not warranted to say that job-related stress is the most serious problem for workers in the corporate world

There are a few things to note about this stimulus:

(1) It makes a small shift from what they complain about to what is/is not the most serious problem. We could say something like, "most individuals are stressed at their jobs but do not complain about it for fear of negative consequences." In other words, just because they don't complain about stress does not mean that they aren't stressed.

(2) It assumes that this survey is quite representative. Maybe this survey was only given to a group of workers who perform quite menial tasks that don't involve a lot of stress.

(3) Somewhat similarly to (2), it shifts from survey results to making conclusions about "workers in the corporate world." Once again, do we know anything about the workers who are taking this survey?

(4) It assumes that people know when they are stressed. For me at least, sometimes it is hard for me to gauge if I am stressed. I mean, sure, I am probably more irritable or something but usually I am fairly focused and so it actually takes someone else to tell me to quit and take a break for a bit.

I don't necessarily think its that reasonable to be thinking about all these objections during game-time but just understanding some of these gaps would probably make this question easier to tackle. I think the big thing I focused on was this disconnection between "most serious" and "most complained about." Either way, let's move on!

(A) This looks decent because it touches upon one of our predictions (they aren't complaining but they are definitely stressed!). However, there are a few problems with it. For one, we aren't really sure how many workers are "responsible for the planning and supervision of long-term projects" and if they took the survey or not. We just simply don't know anything about these workers and what impact they have on the argument. In addition, it is saying that they are less likely to complain about either boredom or stress; to put simply, they aren't complaining about both of them! Well then these clearly aren't the workers we care about because the workers we care about are those that ARE complaining about boredom and NOT about stress. This just seems out of scope.





I believe that A) was also an attractive answer choice that was also getting at the issue of a tainted sample by introducing the idea that there would be a response bias by individuals. (Even though the fact that the sample size used for A) would still be too small and it indicates that those people are less likely to complain about EITHER stress OR boredom)



Exactly. This is why (A) is really no good.


(B) This looks better. It says that, of those complaining about boredom (the majority, remember? ), those same people are exhibited some stress related symptoms than those who are NOT complaining about boredom. This means that those complainers might actually be stressed too. This also touches on one of the predictions I made about knowing that you're stressed. Maybe these complainers don't actually know that they are stressed. Yet by showing some stress-related symptoms, we can infer that the majority of people (at least, those filling out this survey) are actually stressed. This answer choice is not ideal but lets continue to look for better ones.

(C) So this one might question the validity of the survey. After all, those people taking the survey emphasize things that have happened recently but not necessarily the most serious. My question to those that selected (C) would be this though: if we are trying to weaken the argument, how would this help? Think about it, we know that stress is "not high on the list." At best (if we assume that stress has happened recently), this would mean that stress is not that big of a deal. After all, its low on the list even after being emphasized. So this would if anything strengthen the idea that stress is no the most serious problem.





I think that it was very easy to get tripped up by C) because one would automatically assume that boredom would have been the recent phenomena that would have tainted the sample. However, there is no indication that boredom would have been the most recent phenomena.



I don't think what IS the most recent phenomena really matters. Whatever is the most recent phenomena (even if it is stress) does not help to weaken this argument.



(C), which implies that the experiences that have happened most recently are not the most serious ones, weakens the conclusion.



It never implies this. It simply says that workers tend to emphasize things based on the recent situation. Either way though, how do we know what has happened recently? Is it boredom? Okay let's say its boredom. Stress is still way down on the list. Is it stress? Okay let's say its stress. That actually STRENGTHENS this conclusion for reasons I explained above.


(D) How many workers feel that their salaries are commensurate? Are these the same people taking the survey? What about stress? We probably need to include the word "stress" in a right answer.

(E) This functions much like (D). It gives us a group of people that we cannot make deductions about (who are these people that feel their jobs are secure? how many are there?) then it goes to say that they are less likely to complain. This is fairly irrelevant because we don't know if they are the same people filling out the survey and it shows NO bias for complaining about stress/boredom/etc.

(B) is not the strongest weakener in the world but it is not only definitely better than the rest but it also is the only one to really mention stress. (A) mentions it, sure, but it also puts it in the same group as boredom which, in the context, wasn't good. (C) - (E) simply gives us vague notions that do not directly relate to the core. We don't know about "workers who feel X..." and what impact that has on the argument and we also don't know what experiences have happened most recently.


The point is that (B) offers the connection between "boredom" and "stress." By doing so, it weakens the conclusion.

[WaltGrace1983]

The conclusion is that job related stress is not the MOST serious problem. The fact that boredom was reported by a majority of people to be at the top of their list and according to B these people exhibit more stress symptoms than those who find it interesting, seems both vague and irrelevant to me.

It is not irrelevant (maybe a little vague ) but the main point is that it CONNECTS those people who complain about boredom to stress. What do we know? We know that a majority of people who responded to the survey complained about boredom. What does (B) tell us? It tells us that these VERY SAME people are showing symptoms of stress. Thus, we might say that a majority of people are actually stressed!

1) We are comparing them to people who find work interesting. People can find work interesting and can still exhibit stress related symptoms. Others can be bored and not get stressed from it. How does this show you that stress related symptoms can be the MOST serious problem?

(1) We aren't really comparing bored people to interested people. We are simply saying that boredom was "top of the list" for complaints for the majority of people.

(2) You're right: People can find work interesting and can still exhibit stress related symptoms. Others can be bored and not get stressed from it. But I don't see where you are going with that. That's my fault.

2) Workers... exhibit MORE, how does that imply it can even possibly be the MOST serious problem?

"More" and "most" are not exclusive words. "I am more quick than everyone on the Earth" is the same as "I am the most quick/quickest."

Let's assume that the survey results are representative. We have no answer choices really indicating otherwise so let's just assume it to be true. In the context of this question, we get workers complaining. Workers are complaining about boredom the most - at least the majority of workers are complaining about boredom. (C) gives us a connection between boredom and stress. It basically says that you can be both bored and stressed and these people complaining about boredom seem to be stressed too.

Add that information up.

You get a possible inference that most workers are stressed. It does not ABSOLUTELY MEAN most workers are stress but it adds doubt to the argument's conclusion.

[JeremyK460]

breakdown:
premise: workers say they are mostly bored
premise: workers don't say they are stressed much

conclusion: stress isn't much of an issue for workers

assumptions:
those who are bored aren't stressed
those who aren't bored (interested) might be more stressed than those who are bored

the key deductions i made from what's given in the stimulus:

those who claim to be bored are claiming they aren't stressed much (in comparison to other items listed in terms of priority / significance)
the majority of workers say they are bored, so there are a few who have said that they aren't bored (which means they are to some capacity stimulated by their work)
those who don't claim to be as bored must not be as stressed as those who claim to be 'more bored'...