#13 - Humanitarian considerations aside, sheer economics

[KelseyWoods]

Hi RENG!

One thing to remember with assumption questions is that anytime an author makes an argument, he or she is making multiple assumptions. In an Assumption question, you are only being asked to find one of those assumptions. So you're right that there may be several flaws with an argument based on the different assumptions the author is making. But the answer to an Assumption question just needs to identify one of those assumptions--it doesn't have to completely "fix" the argument.

Answer choice (D) is one of the assumptions of this argument. If we use the Assumption Negation technique to negate (D), it would read something like "there would not be an increase in employment if more people survived." This would directly attack the author's claim that saving lives would results in more earnings and more taxes for country X. If more people survived serious injuries but the number of jobs stayed the same, there wouldn't be more earnings and the country would face higher unemployment rates.

Answer choice (D) certainly doesn't fix the argument (as you pointed out, there could be a problem if it costs more to save people than they can earn later) but Assumption questions are not supposed to add something to make the argument 100% solid. As long as the answer choice is something necessary for the argument and if you negate the answer choice it attacks the argument, that's your correct answer.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[Haleyeastham]

Can you please explain to me why increased employment would be an assumption of this stimulus? From my understanding of the stimulus, just because saving these lives would lead to an increase in country X's GNP, that doesn't necessarily mean a growth in EMPLOYMENT- it could have been that they received raises at their current jobs and employment didn't actually grow at all. Please help me understand.

Thank you!

[David Boyle]

Can you please explain to me why increased employment would be an assumption of this stimulus? From my understanding of the stimulus, just because saving these lives would lead to an increase in country X's GNP, that doesn't necessarily mean a growth in EMPLOYMENT- it could have been that they received raises at their current jobs and employment didn't actually grow at all. Please help me understand.

Thank you!

Hello Haleyeastham,

Arguably, they would not have current jobs, because they would have died. The stimulus seems to say that (a) folks would be saved and be alive instead of dead, and (b) they would get a job and earn money and thus help the economy.
...Actually, your point is not bad. E.g., maybe their bosses didn't fire them just because they were sick, so they didn't really lose their jobs, and got back to work again when they were better. But then again, "employment" may not mean getting a job, but the total amount of man-hours or woman-hours of work actually done. Any way you slice it, though, D is the best answer. Even if we think LSAC should have thought of your issue, about sick people keeping their jobs etc., you still have to go with the best answer that there is...

Hope this helps,
David

[jrc3813]

I'm not sure I understand why C is wrong. One of the assumptions I thought was that the new system doesn't increase costs that could offset the earnings gained from saving lives. C seems to get at that but I think see the problems with it:

1) It talks about the trauma centers rather than the transportation system
2) it compares the costs to another treatment center, rather than directly with the gains from the saved lives
3) Increased costs could actually increase GNP which would support the argument rather than harm it.

How would you recommend going about eliminating this answer or something similar. I don't like the 3rd option because it relies on outside information.

[AthenaDalton]

Hi JRC,

Thanks for your question!

You are on the right track when you noted that answer choice (C) compares the cost of a specialized treatment center to a regular treatment center, rather than to the net gains of saving lives. The prompt says that Country X should implement "a nationwide system of air and ground transportation," presumably at considerable cost, which will result in a net gain in GNP from the taxes and wages that the survivors go on to generate.

If you're struggling to choose between two answer choices in an assumption question, you can use the negation technique to test your answer. The negation technique involves negating an answer choice and then seeing what it does to the argument. The correct answer, when negated, will completely undermine the argument. An incorrect answer, when negated, will not impact the argument. Please note that you can use this technique only for assumption questions.

Negating answer choice (C) would give us "the treatment of seriously injured persons in trauma centers is more costly than treatment elsewhere." Then we compare this answer to the prompt. If using specialized treatment centers is more expensive than a using a regular hospital, does that change the analysis of whether or not to implement a costly national transportation system to get seriously injured persons to these treatment centers? The answer is no. The argument in the prompt hinges on increasing survival rates, which in turn allows the survivors to earn more money, thereby increasing government revenues. Essentially, the argument is "if more workers survive, they can continue working and earning money and paying taxes." The cost of the treatment center is not a critical link in this argument's chain of reasoning.

By contrast, negating answer choice (D) has a big impact on the argument. The negation of answer choice (D) is that "there would be a net decrease in employment in country X if more persons survived serious injury." This decimates the prompt's argument. As I mentioned before, the argument hinges on more people surviving, which means that those survivors will work more and produce wages (and taxes) that otherwise wouldn't be earned. Negating answer choice (D) highlights how important the net increase in employment is to the argument as a whole. If increasing the number of survivors somehow decreased overall employment, the entire chain of reasoning would make no sense.

You can read more about the Assumption Negation Technique here:
http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/283 ... Bedfellows.

I hope this helps!

Athena Dalton

[jrc3813]

Hi JRC,

Thanks for your question!

You are on the right track when you noted that answer choice (C) compares the cost of a specialized treatment center to a regular treatment center, rather than to the net gains of saving lives. The prompt says that Country X should implement "a nationwide system of air and ground transportation," presumably at considerable cost, which will result in a net gain in GNP from the taxes and wages that the survivors go on to generate.

If you're struggling to choose between two answer choices in an assumption question, you can use the negation technique to test your answer. The negation technique involves negating an answer choice and then seeing what it does to the argument. The correct answer, when negated, will completely undermine the argument. An incorrect answer, when negated, will not impact the argument. Please note that you can use this technique only for assumption questions.

Negating answer choice (C) would give us "the treatment of seriously injured persons in trauma centers is more costly than treatment elsewhere." Then we compare this answer to the prompt. If using specialized treatment centers is more expensive than a using a regular hospital, does that change the analysis of whether or not to implement a costly national transportation system to get seriously injured persons to these treatment centers? The answer is no. The argument in the prompt hinges on increasing survival rates, which in turn allows the survivors to earn more money, thereby increasing government revenues. Essentially, the argument is "if more workers survive, they can continue working and earning money and paying taxes." The cost of the treatment center is not a critical link in this argument's chain of reasoning.

By contrast, negating answer choice (D) has a big impact on the argument. The negation of answer choice (D) is that "there would be a net decrease in employment in country X if more persons survived serious injury." This decimates the prompt's argument. As I mentioned before, the argument hinges on more people surviving, which means that those survivors will work more and produce wages (and taxes) that otherwise wouldn't be earned. Negating answer choice (D) highlights how important the net increase in employment is to the argument as a whole. If increasing the number of survivors somehow decreased overall employment, the entire chain of reasoning would make no sense.

You can read more about the Assumption Negation Technique here:
http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/283 ... Bedfellows.

I hope this helps!

If C had said "the costs of implementing the nationwide system is not more costly than the gains made from saving more lives" would that be an assumption? Is C basically a shell game? And when negating D would you say that it decreases unemployment or just not increase, so it could stay the same?

And just to be sure, are they saying that employment will increase from what it otherwise would be if they didn't survive? Not that the survivors were replaced while recovering then once they came back to work they were added on top of the replacements therefore increasing employment?

[Charlie Melman]

Hi jrc,

You're right about answer choice (C). We don't care if it's more costly than elsewhere because the stimulus says that these seriously injured people can only be treated at these specific trauma centers.

And yes, it doesn't matter how employment goes up. If net employment doesn't go up if more people are saved, then how will tax revenues from wages go up?

[ataraxia10]

I chose C. If the treatment was more costly at the trauma centers, wouldn't that offset the economic gain spurred by the earnings of survivors and their subsequent tax payments?

[Jay Donnell]

Hi Ataraxia10!

As you can see from the previous replies, C was definitely a tempting answer choice. However, the idea presented would not be one that is necessary for the survival of the argument.

Btw, this has to be up there for one of the hardest ever (and unluckiest I suppose) number thirteen in an LR section!

The conclusion states sheer economics dictate that we should invoke this new nationwide system to help save lives that are currently in great risk of being lost. The economic rationale of the plan involves the idea that these people not only survive, but also go back to work so that we can essentially recoup these costs over time via taxation.

The issue behind C is that, even though these treatments at the specialized trauma facilities are more costly, we have no idea by how much. So even if the cost of transporting a patient to a center which can cure/revive them results in a higher cost, it still provides the ONLY chance at saving their lives, which leaves open the possibility that their future earnings can be taxed as financial reimbursement to the government. Perhaps it may dent the amount of money earned in return in relation to the expense in saving their lives, but we can't make the jump that this excess cost would be sufficient to 'offset' the earnings from taxation.

The cost it takes to save the life is not directly, or necessarily linked to the argument which hinges on saving these lives i order to eventually receive reimbursement through taxed wages, funds that would never have appeared had the patients not survived.

I hope that helps to clear it up!

[Leela]

Hi, I'm a little confused why D is correct. I understand how it could be true, but I'm not seeing it as necessary to get to the conclusion. When I negated the answer choice I got "there would not be a net increase in employment in country X if more persons survived serious injury." I'm not convinced that the negated statement truly weakens the argument. Yes, it could weaken it if we are to also assume that employment is the most important or even a key factor in determining a country's GNP. Is this not going too far? As I see it, there are plenty of other strong ways to grow GNP, employment aside, and without knowing anything about those factors, I don't see why I should assume that the negated statement necessarily weakens the argument.