Q19 - Bureaucrat: The primary, constant

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Necessary Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: The system of regulations in an ideal bureaucracy will always keep expanding.
Evidence: In an ideal bureaucracy, the primary/constant goal is to define and classify all possibilities and write corresponding regulations. There's an appeal procedure for any complaints. If a complaint reveals a problem the initial regulations didn't cover, then the regulations get expanded.

Answer Anticipation:
The author is trying to prove that regulations will be ever-expanding. She provides us with a rule that triggers expanded regulations. When complaints reveal overlooked problems, we get expanded regulations. If the author thinks that ideal bureaucracies will have ever-expanding regulations, she must be thinking that ideal bureaucracies will have an ever-replenshing source of complaints revealing overlooked problems. We could otherwise object: "What if you FINISH the body of regulations and actually cover every possible problem? Or what if people just stop choosing to make a complaint, even if there IS an overlooked problem?"

Correct Answer:
C

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) This is a weird answer. The author does seem to think that an ideal bureaucracy would always provide an appeal procedure. But the author is concluding that an I.B. will NEVER finish defining/classifying all possible problems. The author thinks the regulations will be ever-expanding, so she doesn't seem to even believe there WILL be an "after it has defined/classified all ..." stage of the game.

(B) Extreme: "for each". The author doesn't need there to have been a complaint about every single problem. The author just needs an ever-renewing pool of complaints.

(C) Yes! "Never" is very extreme, but the author's conclusion is "EVER-expanding", so she is definitely making a strong assumption.

(D) Extreme: "if but only if". There's no reason the author needs to believe that "reaching the goal requires an ever-expanding set of regulations". In fact, they are somewhat contradictory. The goal is to FINISH exhaustively categorizing all possible needs for regulations. And having ever-expanding regulations goes contrary to that goal.

(E) Extreme: "any complaint". The author doesn't need for 100% of complaints to reveal overlooked problems. She just needs there to be an ever-replenishing source of complaints that DO reveal overlooked problems. It's fine for her argument if only 20% of complaints reveal problems needing more regulation. As long as complaints keep coming, you would still get an ever expanding body of regulations.

Takeaway/Pattern: It made sense to suspect a missing link/idea, since this argument feels like Idea Math. It tries to prove "regulations will always expand" after giving us a rule that triggers "regulations get expanded". We need to focus on whether we've adequately established that this rule will be triggered. The author never established that we will continue to get complaints that reveal unanticipated problems.

#officialexplanation

[cimani.w]

Negating choice c reads to me as: An deal bureaucracy will always be without complaints about the problems covered by that bureaucrcy's regulations....

How does that make the conclusion fall apart since by negating it its saying theproblems are covered?

[clarafok]

i also got stuck on this question!

i was looking for an answer to explain the 'ever-expanding system of regulations', something that leads to more and more problems, so an ever-expanding system of regulations.

i went with A thinking that if the bureaucracy provides an appeal procedure for complaints even after it has defined and classified all the problems, then that means people could still file complaints, and hence regulations expand.

is C the right answer because it basically says that an ideal bureaucracy will always have complaints about problems that are not covered by the regulations, which fills the gap and leads to it being an ever-expanding system of regulations?

any help would be much appreciated!

thanks in advance!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Answer choice (A) actually undermines the argument's conclusion that an ideal bureaucracy will have an ever-expanding system of regulations. Answer choice (A) says that all possible problems have already been defined and classified. In that case the bureaucracy would not be "ever-expanding," since it would have already found all possible problems.

Answer choice (C) is a necessary assumption because without a guarantee that not all the problems will ever be found, we could not say that the bureaucracy would be "ever-expanding."

is C the right answer because it basically says that an ideal bureaucracy will always have complaints about problems that are not covered by the regulations, which fills the gap and leads to it being an ever-expanding system of regulations?

I think you have it exactly right!

Good work.

[zainrizvi]

Still confused between (A) and (C)

I don't see how (A) goes against the argument since it says even AFTER. that doesnt mean it's already defined/classified all problems... but are you saying that because it has defined/classified everything, that it is no longer an ideal bureaucracy? since all ideal bureaucracies have a goal of define/classifying all problems??

I'm also confused with how to negate (C). The never become sometimes, so you have "an ideal bureaucracy will be sometimes permanently without complaints"


I guess if it's sometimes permanently without complaints (this seems like an oxymoron to me), then an ideal bureaucracy does not have to have an ever-expanding system of regulations.

[d.andrew.chen]

(A): it doesn't establish that there will be more complaints, only that the appeal procedure will exist after the given process. Not an assumption needed at all.

[denis468]

Answer choice C is correct, because it says "Ideal Bureaucracy will never be permanently without complaints that are not covered...", and this equates to "...will always complaints about problems not covered...." which is the requirement for the bureaucracy to self-perpetuate its existence.

[boy5237]

First of all,
I was really confused because I couldn't spot the conclusion.

I initially thought the first statement was the conclusion.
Now I think about it, the last statement "for this reason..."
is the conclusion.

Is this a trend LSAT that they no longer try to state the conclusion obviously?

[monygg85]

I'm curious, what exactly is D saying? I chose C because it definitely destroys the arguments conclusion, but going over D, I dont even know how to negate that exactly. It establishes some sort of bi-conditional and it sort of seems on the right track to be the answer!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

First of all,
I was really confused because I couldn't spot the conclusion.

I initially thought the first statement was the conclusion.
Now I think about it, the last statement "for this reason..."
is the conclusion.

Is this a trend LSAT that they no longer try to state the conclusion obviously?

You've got the right conclusion. And in my opinion, I think this is still within the normal range of difficulty for conclusion identification. The language cue "for this reason," is pretty clear.

I'm curious, what exactly is D saying? I chose C because it definitely destroys the arguments conclusion, but going over D, I dont even know how to negate that exactly. It establishes some sort of bi-conditional and it sort of seems on the right track to be the answer!

You're absolutely correct that it sets out a bi-conditional. But it links two things that probably shouldn't be connected. Reaching the goal of identifying all possible problems is at odds with an ever expanding system of regulations. The argument is actually trying to say that the bureaucracy will never reach its goal!

Hope that helps!

[cwolfington]

I'm curious, what exactly is D saying? I chose C because it definitely destroys the arguments conclusion, but going over D, I dont even know how to negate that exactly. It establishes some sort of bi-conditional and it sort of seems on the right track to be the answer!

I also picked (D) at first. It's wrong because it creates a double-arrow where one doesn't exist, i.e: Primary goal <-->Ever-expanding regulations.

But the author's argument is: Primary goal+Appeal procedure->Ever-expanding regulations; so (D) ignores "appeal procedure", and it makes a double-arrow, which can be negated without weakening the argument.

[GeneW]

Can someone please explain why B is incorrect? If there is at least one complaint for each problem, would it not lead to an ever-expanding system of regulations. Thank you in advance.

[christine.defenbaugh]

I also picked (D) at first. It's wrong because it creates a double-arrow where one doesn't exist, i.e: Primary goal <-->Ever-expanding regulations.

But the author's argument is: Primary goal+Appeal procedure->Ever-expanding regulations; so (D) ignores "appeal procedure", and it makes a double-arrow, which can be negated without weakening the argument.

You're on the right track, cwolfington, but you should be careful about a few things in your dismissal of (D). Let me break down the argument core:

PREMISE: IB goal = define/classify all problems, set regs for every situation
IB has appeal procedure for complaints
IF complaint raises unanticipated problem --> regs are expanded
CONCLUSION: IB will have "ever-expanding" regs

Interestingly, we don't actually need the first premise here. The goal of the ideal bureaucracy is more or less irrelevant to the argument. Things we NEED are: 1) there to be some complaints and 2) those complaints to raise unanticipated problems. And we need that to happen into infinity (to support "ever-expanding").

What we DON'T need is anything at all about the "primary goal", so the fact that (D) invokes it is a huge red flag!

I must stress here, though, that the answer did not NEED to saying anything about the appeal procedure. Remember, we're looking for an assumption that NEEDS to be true - we're not looking for a sufficient assumption that would guarantee the argument.

You are absolutely correct, though, that the biconditional arrow is pretty darn suspect. Why in the world would we need a biconditional arrow to support the conclusion? Assumption answers are often in a conditional format - If [premise] --> then [conclusion], but it's a rare thing indeed for a Necessary Assumption to be a biconditional.

As an added bonus, the clause about the "primary goal"(D) talks about whether the ideal bureaucracy "can reach" that primary goal. The stimulus only mentions what the primary goal is.

[christine.defenbaugh]

Can someone please explain why B is incorrect? If there is at least one complaint for each problem, would it not lead to an ever-expanding system of regulations. Thank you in advance.

Thanks for posting, GeneW!

(B) is focused on the problems that the bureaucracy has already classified. Just because each of those existing and now known problems originally came from a complaint, that doesn't necessarily mean that there will be complaints in the future revealing yet more as-yet-unknown problems.

Also, you seem to be approaching this as if it were a sufficient assumption question instead of a necessary one - if (B) were true, the conclusion then followed that would only indicate a sufficient assumption. (Here (B) is neither necessary nor sufficient.)

The correct analysis is to ask whether or not we NEED (B) to be true in order for the conclusion to hold? We don't need to know anything at all about the problems that are already defined and classified!! I only need to know that there will be more complaints about new issues in the future.

Please let me know if this clears up the confusion!

[magic.imango]

Can someone explain why (E) is wrong? I can't quite convince myself it's wrong.

I read (E) as if the bureaucracy is not capable of defining and classifying an unanticipated problem, then the system of regulations cannot possibly continue expanding.

Thank you!

[ltownsjr]

Can someone explain why (E) is wrong? I can't quite convince myself it's wrong.

I read (E) as if the bureaucracy is not capable of defining and classifying an unanticipated problem, then the system of regulations cannot possibly continue expanding.

Thank you!

Don't know if you're still up here, but to me this is wrong because there is no tie in to the word "regulations." This may be a sufficient assumption, but not a required one.

[neelkothari30]

Going through the question, I got it down between C and E, and wrongly chose E.

In my review, I clearly see why C is correct. I just wanted to put down another reason why I thought E was incorrect.

E says "Any complaint... will reveal an unanticipated problem"; upon review I just find too strong because the stimulus does not let us make the assumption that every complain will reveal an unanticipated problem, it just tells us that if a complaint reveals, (there is uncertainty out here), then the regulations will be expanded to cover the issue.

Please let me know if my thinking process is on the right track.

Thanks!

[WesleyC316]

Negating C would be like "An ideal bureaucracy will be permanently without complaints at sometime in the future", making the system not ever-expanding. So C is the correct answer.

[SJK493]

(E) Extreme: "any complaint". The author doesn't need for 100% of complaints to reveal overlooked problems. She just needs there to be an ever-replenishing source of complaints that DO reveal overlooked problems. It's fine for her argument if only 20% of complaints reveal problems needing more regulation. As long as complaints keep coming, you would still get an ever expanding body of regulations.

Would answer (E) be correct if it didn't include the 'any'? So if the answer says 'some complaints will reveal an unanticipated problem that the bureaucracy is capable of defining and classifying,' that is another assumption?

[JeremyK460]

(E) Extreme: "any complaint". The author doesn't need for 100% of complaints to reveal overlooked problems. She just needs there to be an ever-replenishing source of complaints that DO reveal overlooked problems. It's fine for her argument if only 20% of complaints reveal problems needing more regulation. As long as complaints keep coming, you would still get an ever expanding body of regulations.

Would answer (E) be correct if it didn't include the 'any'? So if the answer says 'some complaints will reveal an unanticipated problem that the bureaucracy is capable of defining and classifying,' that is another assumption?

my biggest issue with (e) is how it subtly centers around the 'success' of the appeal procedure (complaints revealing unforeseen problems) when the argument doesn't rely on its outcome, effective or not, to draw its conclusion

even (c) stays away from being that specific
(c) focuses on complaints (in general) about problems that haven't been classified, which is very different than complaints that REVEAL to us...alluding to the 'appeal procedure' that rise or fall has no necessary bearing on the persistence of identifying new problems

the conclusion depends on the persistence of finding new problems to satisfy the ever expanding machine