In general, jobs are harder to get in times of economic recession

The answer is B, because during the recession, children will switch from school privately fund which charge substantial fee to school free of charge fund by the government, so the ratio student to teacher will increase, and provoke more need in term of teacher.

I choose "A" because current student-teacher ratio is higher than it was during the recent economic recession. This implies that studen teacher ratio can't be increased any further and all children have to study. So teacher will be needed and they won't loose the job even during the recession.

D and E are clearly irrelevant.

C. Nearly 20 percent more teachers are currently employed in Vargonia's government-funded schools than had been employed in those schools in the period before the last economic recession. ------> This comparison is useless unless its a recent situation VS current situation. And does that support the conclusion? Absolutely not !
Conclusion : The teaching jobs @ Govt funded schools will NOT reduce due to future economic recession.

A is pretty much outside the scope since the passage didn't gave us any data about the ratio. May be that ratio will not be maintained in the future. Who knows?

this means that, if you add more students, you HAVE to add more teachers. if you don't get rid of students, you CAN'T get rid of teachers.
therefore, any choice that implies that you won't lose students, or you'll even gain students, will be a HUGE strengthener.
this is what (b) does. it strongly suggests that the public schools will see an influx of students who used to attend private school but can't afford it anymore.

This explanation is from Manhatten website. Also, many people mention this explanation above as the reason that B is correct.

But I am still confused a little bit.

B just states the fact that when the economy is strong, almost 25 percent students go to private school.
I think that with only the fact above, we don't know whether those students go to goverment-funded school when the economy is bad.
We could guess, but cannot be sure.
I'd like to know the logic in more details.

Also, I picked C although I doubted when I picked it.
Could you explain what is wrong with C?

Hello Karishma,

I very well agree with your line of reasoning. However, one small doubt,

Current teacher student ratio is not to be exceeded,

the above states in an indirect way that those children who are currently studying in govt. schools will continue to do so, but what if students from private schools shift to govt schools ? Will that not affect the current student teacher ratio?

Hope to get some clarifications on this.

Thanks
Manish

What do you mean by 'current student teacher ratio should not be exceeded'?
It means that if more students join, you will need to hire more teachers. Say if the current ratio is 10:1, it means that for every 10 students there is 1 teacher. If no of students increases, more teachers will be hired. If students move from private schools to govt schools in recession, no of students will increase. Since student teacher ratio cannot increase, more teachers will be hired. So a recession will not hurt teaching jobs at government-funded schools.

great explanation. we want the expert discuss more and detaily.

but I have a question. Normally, some persons advise to prethink an assumption before going to answer choices for strengthen and weaken question. I do not see you prethink an assumption when you do this question. pls, show us where you do prethinking assumption. pls, detail the process of your thingking/doing this question so that we can imitate you.

Thank you very much.

Yes, thinking objectively beforehand about what you expect from the correct option can help in many cases. I do tend to think about what I am looking for before reaching out for the options.

Look at this in my explanation above:

"What will strengthen this conclusion?
Something which gives you further evidence that recession will not hurt teaching jobs at govt schools. If student-teacher ratio has to be maintained, what can lead to fewer jobs for teachers? Fewer students. So if we can establish that during recession, the number of students in govt schools will not reduce, we can establish that teaching jobs in govt schools are secure no matter the state of the economy."

This is what I think beforehand. I have to strengthen the conclusion. What will strengthen my conclusion? The premises tell me that student-teacher has to be maintained. The conclusion says that recession will not hurt govt-teaching jobs. If I can say that no. of students will not reduce during recession in govt schools, then to maintain the ratio, the number of teachers cannot reduce either. This strengthens my conclusion.

CR is very analytical. If you go one step at a time and keep things clear in your mind, very few questions will trip you.

Let's imagine a different scenario: a new crisis comes and many poor parents withdraw their kids from school, while all the rich ones keep theirs in the private institutions.
Wouldn't this generate an excessive number of teachers in public schools? The children are not legally obliged to go to school, as far as I understand.

After taking the LSAT, and doing very well, I've endeavored to take the GMAT. From my experience, choosing B doesn't strengthen this argument.

If you assume that because of the recession people will enter public schools, that would stregnthen it, but one shouldn't assume what's offered as evidence and concluded.

If you don't assume that, then this answer choice does nothing to the argument. By it doing nothing to the argument, then the argument isn't strengthened.

Perhaps I'm off, or looking to literally from my vast experience in dealing with "LSAT CR Questions," but this answer choice seems off.

The argument clearly gives you "Vargonia has just introduced a legal requirement that education in government-funded schools be available, free of charge, to all Vargonian children regardless of the state of the economy"
Education is available free of charge, recession or no recession. There is no reason to assume that people will take their wards out of school.

The wording of option B hints at a connection between economy and private/public schools.

During recent periods when the Vargonian economy has been strong, almost 25 percent of Vargonian children have attended privately funded schools, many of which charge substantial fees.

If we change option B to 'almost 25 percent of Vargonian children attend privately funded schools', then I agree that we would need to assume a lot to strengthen the conclusion.

Mind you, CR in LSAT and CR in GMAT are not identical. That is the reason I do not suggest my students to work on LSAT CR while preparing for GMAT (or to work very selectively). This question is from GMAT Prep so it is an official question. If you plan to take GMAT, try to identify the logic so that you can use it in other GMAT questions too.

@Karishma

What if they have to withdraw their kids from school in order to work and help the family? That is exactly what happens in some countries during deep crisis'.

I realize this is just me being polemical, but you have to admit the are some flaws in this question.

One should never think this hard on any given question, but once one does, there is, in my opinion, no way to rule out all of the other possibilities.

New info will always bring some assumptions along with it. No data provided will be perfect. Often, you will be able to provide additional data and make the new info serve a contrarian purpose. For more on this, check the following explanation a posted some days back:

which-of-the-following-most-logically-completes-the-143975-20.html#p1174789

Let us analyze choice A. It says that the current student-teacher ratio is higher now at government funded schools than it was during the last recession. Let us assume the current period to be a period of stronger economy. A higher student-teacher ratio during the current period means that during the last recession period there were less students who attended the government funded schools. It cannot be more teachers because till now during recession, jobs were cut down. This implies more students attended the private schools during last recession than during the current period of stronger economy. We can reasonably conclude that cost was not a major factor in the students's decision in choosing the school, as private schools charge higher than the government funded schools. The other major factor being the quality of education should have weighed in more in the students decision in the choice of the school. Based on the above we can conclude that the government funded schools provided a better or at least no less quality education than the private schools.

Now with the decision of the government to make the education free, many more would want to join the government funded schools and so more teachers would be hired Thus choice A in fact would strengthen argument that there would not be a cut in the number of teachers jobs at the government funded schools.

Choice B in my opinion is not as solid because it doesn't automatically imply that the students who were studying at private schools during stronger economy would join the government funded schools during recession because as mentioned above there are two factors that weigh in students decision, being quality of education and cost of education. So if the private schools were markedly higher in the quality of education that they offer we would see little number of students moving to government funded schools during recession.

So to me choice A appears to strengthen the argument better.

I disagree.



We don't know what was the scenario during recession last time. Perhaps the demography was such that there were fewer kids leading to higher student-teacher ratios. Perhaps there were more teachers in the system and with declining demand, the number of teachers in the system has decreased which has increased the student-teacher ratio. There are n number of possibilities. Nothing is given that links last recession with the current scenario. What you are given is the current scenario and what you can expect in the next recession. So choice (A) is out of scope.



Again, quality of education is out of scope here. There are a dozen other factors parents weigh while selecting a school but none of the others are relevant to our argument. The argument only deals with cost and student-teacher ratio. Option B very clearly states that during strong times, many kids are attending private schools which charge substantial fees. Also, since it is given that jobs are harder to come by in recession, it is possible that some people might be forced to use free-of-cost govt schools.

Let us first agree that during recession the number of teachers is lower than during a period of strong economy. The argument is based on that fact. Let us also use the common sense logic that the number of kids going to school is not going to vary significantly from one year to another within a short period. So considering all the n number of possibilities we can reasonably reach the above conclusion. So there is the cost factor and n number of other factors. If during recession the n number of factors weighed more or equally in favor of the private schools as in a period of strong economy, then the cost factor is being overlooked and therefore there are enough well to do parents who can send their kids to private schools during recession. Your argument that since parents would be out of job and so don't send their kids to private schools is not strong. This is because during previous recession also as we can infer, the parents did not change their kids from private schools to government funded schools because of cost. So if the number of kids going to private schools is 25% during strong economy it was also about the same during the recession.

While choice B considers only the cost factor, choice A implies that the other factors are important and along with the cost factor will strengthen the argument even strongly. In fact in the case of choice B, cost factor may be pitted against the other factors.