PrepTest 155

This explains why the industries that rely on computers have diminished productivity growth, clarifying why the phenomenon discussed in this argument's premise occurred. But this certainly doesn't weaken the conclusion because the conclusion is about individual businesses, not industries.

If the conclusion asserted that embracing computers led to diminished productivity growth in industrialized nations, this would weaken the conclusion by presenting the effect without the cause. However, as discussed in the Answer Anticipation section, this conclusion is not asserting a cause-and-effect relationship. Moreover, this conclusion is about individual businesses, not entire nations. So we need to find something that relates directly to individual businesses' productivity.

This is irrelevant to the conclusion. This answer choice references businesses that are responsible for producing computer technology. But our conclusion pertains to individual companies that have become more reliant on computers. Those are not necessarily the same businesses, so we can't say that this answer choice applies to the argument's conclusion.

Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Weaken

Stimulus Summary:
Productivity growth has dropped since computers became commonplace. And productivity growth has diminished the most in industries that rely on on computers the most. So a business that increases its reliance on computers probably isn't improving its productivity growth by doing so.

Strategy Overview:

1. Argument or facts? Always argument, so identify premises and conclusions of argument
2. Anticipate why the premises are not enough to show that the conclusion is true
   1. Causal argument? Look for answer choice that:
      1. Shows possible alternate cause
      2. Shows cause without effect
      3. Shows effect without cause
      4. Shows the cause and effect are reversed
   2. If not causal argument, anticipate ways to worsen problem with argument
3. Use anticipations to select the answer choice that, if true, would weaken argument

Answer Anticipation:
Our ultimate goal is to find the answer choice that weakens the argument. However, it's much easier to do that if we first break down the argument and identify its flaws. Then, weakening the argument is only a matter of finding the answer choice that exploits that flaw.

Causation flaws are rampant on Weaken questions, but this argument doesn't quite commit a causation flaw. It would have if the conclusion read, "A business that has increased its reliance on computer technology has hurt its productivity growth by doing so." In that case, the argument would have committed itself to a cause-and-effect relationship (the computers caused lower productivity growth), and we could have weakened it on causal grounds. However, this conclusion doesn't assert a cause-and-effect relationship — it just argues that computers haven't caused productivity growth for individual businesses.

So let's look for a non-causal problem with the argument. Notice how it's making a pretty big jump between entire nations' and industries' productivity growth and that of specific businesses. That seems to be a whole-to-part composition flaw. The author assumes that, because nations and industries that have embraced computers experienced diminished productivity growth, individual companies that have embraced computers must also have experienced diminished productivity growth.

To many, that may be an intuitively appealing conclusion. However, it's not valid. Isn't it possible the individual companies that have not embraced computers have seen their productivity plummet, while the companies that have embraced computers have seen modest improvements to their productivity? In that case, couldn't it be possible that the entire nation or industry experienced diminished productivity growth, even though many individual companies experienced productivity growth? 

We'll look for a correct answer choice that exposes this flaw. Perhaps by showing the companies that have not embraced computers are driving down the industrial/national average, or that companies that have embraced computers are experiencing productivity growth.

Answer Choice Explanation:
Here we find what we were looking for: a fundamental difference between industry-wide or national trends and the results an individual business can expect. If the businesses that have embraced computers the most are also seeing the most significant productivity growth, the conclusion is weakened. Yes, the industries or nations as a whole might have diminished productivity growth, but maybe an individual business that embraces computers can still improve its productivity growth by doing so. In other words, this answer choice exposes the composition fallacy in the passage and is correct.

Key Takeaway:
Attentive LSATers will pay close attention to the scope of an argument's conclusion on a Weaken question. In this case, our conclusion was about the recent activity of individual businesses that increased their reliance on computers. Every wrong answer choice was incorrect because they didn't discuss individual businesses at all (like (A) and (B)), or they didn't discuss businesses that increased their reliance on computers (like (C)), or they didn't discuss the recent activity of said businesses (like (E)).

We don't care about "in the next few years." This conclusion is about the recent past, so that's the period we need to focus on. Trying to use this answer choice to weaken the stimulus's argument would be a temporal fallacy.