Q18 - Hospitals, universities, labor unions, and other insti

[tommywallach]

PT 65, S4, Q18 (Principle Support)

(B) is correct.

This is a Principle Support question, meaning it’s in the assumption family. With all assumption family questions, you need to start by locating the core"”conclusion and supporting premises. From there, you can try to predict what principle is being illustrated, then search for it in the answer choices.

This whole stimulus is one sentence, so both the conclusion and its support will be in the same sentence. The conclusion comes in the beginning: "[Various institutions] may have public purposes and be successful at achieving them." All that’s left is the second half of the sentence: "each of their staff members does [stuff] for selfish reasons."

Is this support for the conclusion? No! In fact, it seems to go against our conclusion (a hint that this was coming can be found in the reversal phrase "even though"). So for this question, we need to find a supporting principle that will link these seemingly irreconcilable elements.

How is it possible for a group of selfish people to serve a public purpose? Only if a group can be more than the sum of its parts. We’re looking for an answer choice that allows us to differentiate between individual members of a group and the group itself.

(A) All the social organizations mentioned in this passage are described similarly, as being capable of serving a public good in spite of the selfishness of their members. We are not shown that something is true for some social organizations that is not true for others.

(B) This answer choice does seem to differentiate between a group and its members. If this is true, it’s possible for individual members of a group to be selfish, and yet the overall effect of the group’s work might be to the public good.

(C) No one described in the passage ever claims altruistic motives.

(D) All of the groups specifically listed in the passage were intended to serve a public purpose, and we’re told that they do in fact serve that purpose. Thus, no unintended consequences are ever discussed.

(E) Similarly to (D), (E) tries to suggest other possible purposes of the institutions listed. But all we are told is that they all wind up serving a public purpose, as they were originally intended. No secondary purposes are mentioned in the passage.

[lhermary]

I'm hoping someone can help me with this one.

I didn't like B because the stimulus doesn't say whether the member did or did not possess the property. Just because they did something for selfish reasons doesn't mean they don't possess a public purpose.


I didn't like any of the other answers and thus wasted a lot of time on this question.

Please help

Thanks

[tommywallach]

Hey Lhermany,

Au contraire! The passage absolutely states that each member did not possess the quality. The quality, in this case, is "public purpose." Public purpose is the idea of doing things for the good of the public at large. But we've been told that each individual member does things "only for selfish reasons." That word only is very important, because it lets us know that the staff members definitely do not have public purpose in mind.

Hope that helps!

-t

[Djjustin818]

I'm still a little confused as to why D is wrong. I chose this one because although the conclusion doesn't mention "unintended" consequences it does say only for selfish reasons. Couldn't this be inferred to mean the other consequences are unintended because they are unselfish?

[michellemyxu]

I chose (E) instead of (B) - The "not all" in (B) just annoys me... Since the stimulus says "even though each of their individual staff members" do things for selfish reasons, I feel like it would be better if (B) says "an organization can have a property that none of its members possess"? Any thoughts on how to handle this kind of language?

Also, for (E), is it wrong because it says "just as effectively" when there's no indication of any sort of comparison of effectiveness in the stimulus?

Thank you!

[ohthatpatrick]

You're just analyzing whether you could prove/support each answer choice. Don't worry about whether the answer choice is phrased in a "perfect/maximal" way.

If we said:
The coat costs $40 and John has enough cash in his pocket to buy it.

What can we infer:
(A) John has at least $40 cash in his pocket
(B) John does not have less than $13 in his pocket



BOTH!

(A) is phrased exactly as we might have predicted / matched up, but (B) is nonetheless true.

If John has at least $40, then he doesn't have less than $13.

For (B), if ZERO members possess unselfish purposes then "not all members possess unselfish purposes".

LSAT routinely finds ways to express what we know in phrasings we wouldn't have chosen/expected. Just ask yourself whether you can match it up / whether it qualifies.

And, yes, (E) is wrong because of the extreme comparison, for which we have no support. (SAMENESS = very extreme)