Q22 - Company president: Most of our

[Nina]

how does B weaken the argument? i chose E.

thanks in advance!

[tommywallach]

Hey Nina,

This is a weaken question, so start by looking at the core:

Conclusion: We should favor applicants with Eng. degrees but no S.E. over people w/o Eng. degrees with lots of S.E.

Premise: Most of the best folks have Eng. degrees + no S.E.

This argument is making a fairly common assumption: causation/correlation. We know that "being good" and "having an Eng. degree and no S.E." correlate, but that doesn't mean one causes the other. The correct answer will take advantage of this assumption.

(A) The prompt discusses the best sales reps who "came to the job" with an eng. degree, so this is irrelevant.

(B) CORRECT. Here's the problem. Imagine, for a moment, that everyone hired at a given company is from Florida. You could then say "Most of the best people are from Florida." But so are most of the worst people! This answer choice tell us that most of the people at the company have this specific background; that means that it isn't the background itself that makes people good or bad, so hiring people with that same background won't necessarily lead to the hiring of more good people.

(C) This is about customers. Totally irrelevant.

(D) This wouldn't weaken the argument at all. It doesn't matter how many people there are, but whether they're the best people.

(E) I see why you found this tempting, but remember, we already have a premise: "Most of the best people have little or no sales experience." This answer choice tell us that "some people without sales experience were bad." But we already knew that. We still don't have an explanation (or a weaken) of why it is that most of the best people have no sales experience.

Hope that helps!

-t

[Dkrajewski30]

Causal arguments can get tricky nowadays, particularly with the subtlety of the correct answer choices. When reviewing, I realized the flaw was fairly noticeable, but that the correct answer was not obvious.

Essentially, the flaw is causal, and the correct answer suggests that the majority of the best people come from the majority group in the office, which gives us reason to doubt that there's a causal connection between the backgrounds of the best people and their sales success. Since there are more people with such a background than any other group in the office, then that's why more of the best people have that background - there are just more of them in the pool. It's like if someone is betting on the Superbowl and points out that the guy whose square won has a background in statistics, and then he concludes the background in statistics has something to do with his success. Well, what if the guy just bought a ton of squares, which made it significantly more likely he'd win? The same applies here. What if the people with the engineering background significantly outnumber everyone else? We don't necessarily have reason to think their backgrounds cause their success.

You figure there could be 100 people with background x and 10 with background y. 8 people with background x are considered the best, while 7 with background y are. It stands that most of the best people have background x (8/15). Then, according to the argument, we should favor background x in applicants. But 70% of people with background y become the best, while only a tiny fraction of people with background x become the best. Why then should we favor background x in applicants? If anything, we should favor background y.

[pewals13]

Is it safe to say that, for the most part, exceptions to a correlation do not undermine a causal conclusion based on that correlation?

[tommywallach]

I suppose the answer is yes, but it's worth mentioning that a correlation doesn't inherently support a causal reading, so this is unlikely to be an issue as you're stating it. But a correlation doesn't necessarily have to be absolute to be a correlation.

-t

[logicfiend]

Working on really eliminating E so I thought I would write my thoughts out if someone wants to correct them. I'm not sure if I'm just repeating what Tommy said, but here's how I understood why E was wrong:

The AC only says that some people hired at the company without sales experience are bad sales people, but this is consistent with the conclusion. The premise says that most of the BEST (within the group of the all the employees and within the group of the best) have a engineering degree and no sales experience. So it's perfectly consistent that some other people working at the company would have no sales experience and still be bad sales people. Am I interpreting this correctly?

[abkrusemark]

Is D a strengthener? If most of the applicants to this company do not have engineering degrees, then the ones who do are more rare. And if subsequently hired maybe they are more valuable employees (and great sales representatives)?

[ohthatpatrick]

To the post two back -- yes, you've got it. "Most X are Y" leaves room for exceptions. There could easily be some X's that are not-Y.

"Some" = at least one. This is often way too weak a claim to make a difference. Saying there is at least one X that is not-Y does not conflict with anything the author said/thought.

====

To the previous post --- yes, I think you're right. It would be an unusual correct answer, but it rules out an alternative explanation.

Why are most of our best sales reps people with degrees in engineering?

Author's explanation: The engineering background helps them be a good sales rep.
Alternative explanation: Most of our APPLICANTS are people with degrees in engineering, so the engineering degree is just a coincidental factor.

Since (D) works against that alternative explanation, you could think of (D) as strengthening.

[seychelles1718]

I chose B via POE but I was hesitant to pick it.

how do we know if the two groups
1. Most of the best sales reps
2. Most of the employees at the company

overlap with each other?

Also, if D said "most of the people who apply for a sales rep position with the company DO HAVE a degree in engineering," could it weaken the argument?

[ohthatpatrick]

I'm not sure why you're looking to prove an overlap, but we would NOT know if "most of best sales reps" and "most of employees" overlap. We don't know ANYTHING about most employees.

We wouldn't even know if
"most of BEST sales reps" overlaps with the "most of the sales reps" fact given in (B).

Did you understand how (B) weakens the argument?

The author assumes that "engineering, but little sales exp" is a the CAUSAL formula that makes a "best sales rep".

How does he know this? MOST of his best sales rep have this quality!

Well, (B) says, what if most of the sales reps in general have this quality. Clearly the formula isn't a surefire success, since they can't all be the best!

As an analogous argument:
Most death row prisoners are right handed. Thus, being right handed apparently makes someone more likely to commit a heinous crime.

WEAKEN THAT:
Nah, fool. Most PEOPLE are right handed, period. THAT's why most death row prisoners are right handed. It's over-represented in the general population, so it's normal for it to be over-represented in a subset of the population too.

[CourtneyH949]

Could someone elaborate on what is wrong with answer A? I understand why answer B is correct, but I'm struggling to see what is wrong with answer A. I thought that if it is possible to earn an engineering degree while working and therefore to gain the benefits of an engineering, then it would weaken the benefit of preferring candidates with engineering degrees and little/no sales experience over candidates with sales experience. Because couldn't they hire the candidates with sales experience, and those people could gain engineering degrees and the benefits of the degree while working?

[Misti Duvall]

Could someone elaborate on what is wrong with answer A? I understand why answer B is correct, but I'm struggling to see what is wrong with answer A. I thought that if it is possible to earn an engineering degree while working and therefore to gain the benefits of an engineering, then it would weaken the benefit of preferring candidates with engineering degrees and little/no sales experience over candidates with sales experience. Because couldn't they hire the candidates with sales experience, and those people could gain engineering degrees and the benefits of the degree while working?

Sure, they could, but it sounds like you're reading an awful lot into the stimulus here. The conclusion is only that we should favor applicants who have engineering degrees over those with sales experience. And that's based on the premise that most of the best sales reps came to the job with just engineering degrees.

Say some sales reps gained engineering degrees along the way: do we know these sales reps are the best? We don't. They could be the worst! We don't have enough information to evaluate whether (A) would weaken the argument, so we can eliminate.