Q20 - University president: We will be

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Sufficient Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: To maintain quality, we must market programs more aggressively.
Evidence: If we don't market, we won't be able to increase enrollment.
If we don't increase enrollment, we'll have to reduce spending.

Answer Anticipation:
The conclusion warns us that "if we don't market more aggressively, we won't be able to maintain the quality of education".
The evidence says that "if we don't market --> can't inrease enrollment --> forced to reduce spending."

So the author is missing the final leap from
"if we're forced to reduce spending, then we won't be able to maintain our quality of education".

We can anticipate that we might see this in its contrapositive form: "Maintaining the same quality of education requires that we don't reduce spending."

Correct Answer:
D

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) We could use a rule that said "if we DON'T increase enrollment, we will not maintain quality."

(B) Since this doesn't address the New Term in the conclusion ('maintaining quality'), it's worthless.

(C) Same as (B). Without a rule that involves "maintaining quality", we could never derive this conclusion.

(D) YES! "If reduce spending, won't maintain quality". That adds on to the premise chain and allows us to derive the conclusion.

(E) Same as (B) and (C). Without a rule involving "maintaining quality", we could never derive the conclusion.

Takeaway/Pattern: Two cheap tricks for Sufficient Assumption are pretty useful here:
- "New Guy in the Conclusion = MUST be in the answer". Since "maintaining quality" only appears in the conclusion, it must appear in the correct answer. Thus, (B), (C), and (E) are wrong at a quick glance.
- "Mentioned Twice? That'll suffice." Since Sufficient Assumption is usually asking us to link together the two dangling ideas, you can often narrow down which two concepts need to be connected by simply eliminating everything that's mentioned twice. "Increased enrollment" and "aggressive marketing" are both mentioned twice. So what's left is "reducing spending" and "maintaining quality".

#officialexplanation

[saam.pousht-mashhad]

I was struggling between answers (D) and (E). Can someone outline the schematics of the argument and explain why (E) is a better choice than (D)?

This seems like a relatively easy question. I think I have mistaken the relationships.

[fourfolkspa]

I believe (but may be wrong) that D is the right answer.

I think a good written or mental diagram helps for this sort of problem. Based on the prompt, one could break down the argument as follows:

Premises:
1) "No increase in enrollment" = "forced to reduce spending" (first thing the president says)

2) "No aggressive marketing" = "no increase in enrolment" (the last thing the President says, but somewhat tricky to spot because it comes after the conclusion)

Transitive property tells us that "no aggressive marketing" = "forced to reduce spending" though this isn't explicitly stated

Conclusion:
If we don't market programs aggressively, we cannot maintain our quality of education.

You can see that there is a clear gap here. Did we say anything about "Quality of education" before the conclusion? No...Using the premises, we can get to "no aggressive marketing" = "forced to reduce spending", but where does "unable to maintain quality of education" come in?

It doesn't, so we need to find an answer that connects "forced to reduce spending" with or to "unable to maintain quality of education".

Answer D fills that gap nicely by providing the missing piece: "reduced spending" = "unable to maintain quality of education"

[demetri.blaisdell]

Top notch explanation, fourfolkspa. I think you hit it out of the park. The wording on the stimulus is a little tricky but this just comes down to a term shift. Premise says reduce spending. Conclusion says maintain quality of education. BAM!

Thanks for posting.

Demetri

[timmydoeslsat]

Good stuff here.

~RS ---> IE ---> MA
_________________
MQ ---> MA

We need an answer choice with MQ in it.

Expect this link: [MQ ---> ~RS]

Answer choice (D) states this with the contrapositive.

[aescano209]

Hey just wanted to post up a little tip with this sufficient assumption question. This by no means is the best way to do this, but for those in a time crunch which might be the case here since this is Q. 20. Anyways, notice that the conclusion introduces a new term which is 'maintain the quality of education'. In order to justify the conclusion the author must be assuming something from the evidence to this term. Given that, the answer choice will most likely contain this terminology this by itself allows us to eliminate B, C, and E based on that. Now you are left with just A and D. This is the part where you do still want to connect the mismatched terms which in this case would be Reduced Spending --> ~Maintain the Quality of Education. This will be found in D. I know this explanation is oversimplified, but just try to keep this tip in mind as sometimes it will help weed out the incorrect answers in a bind.

[zen]

Hey just wanted to post up a little tip with this sufficient assumption question. This by no means is the best way to do this, but for those in a time crunch which might be the case here since this is Q. 20. Anyways, notice that the conclusion introduces a new term which is 'maintain the quality of education'. In order to justify the conclusion the author must be assuming something from the evidence to this term. Given that, the answer choice will most likely contain this terminology this by itself allows us to eliminate B, C, and E based on that. Now you are left with just A and D. This is the part where you do still want to connect the mismatched terms which in this case would be Reduced Spending --> ~Maintain the Quality of Education. This will be found in D. I know this explanation is oversimplified, but just try to keep this tip in mind as sometimes it will help weed out the incorrect answers in a bind.

Awesome tip! I wish I would have realized this sooner. Makes POE for this question pretty smooth.

To add-on: Once you're down to (A) and (D), you can eliminate A pretty easy because it's going against what the author is saying! Increasing enrollment is the goal here as that is the sufficient condition for not having to reduce spending and by not reducing spending we can maintain the quality of education. (A) says the opposite of this-- that increased enrollment will actually be a negative in regards to maintaining the quality of education; we're looking for a positive. Eliminate.