Public interest law focuses on the legal issues that affect the entire

Question

Public interest law focuses on the legal issues that affect the entire community or involve broad areas of public concern, such as illegal discrimination, environmental protection, child welfare, and domestic violence. A particular nonprofit agency focusing on public interest law is woefully understaffed; many lawyers are urgently needed to continue its important work providing low-cost legal services to residents who are unable to afford a private attorney. In order to fill these vacancies as efficiently as possible, the agency should advertise the jobs to students in this year’s graduating class at the local law school to encourage them to enter the field of public interest law.

Each of the following, if true, weakens the recommendation above EXCEPT:

(A). Positions in corporate law that are advertised at the local law school have higher average salaries than do legal positions at nonprofit agencies.

(B). The local law school maintains an active placement service for its graduates and publicizes job openings in the community to its graduating class.

(C). The open positions at the nonprofit agency require several years of prior experience in the practice of law.

(D). Several lawyers recently left the nonprofit agency because the agency’s salaries did not enable the lawyers to make their student loan payments.

(E). The local law school is ranked third highest in the country, and graduates of the school aspire to work for large, highly rated law firms located in major cities.

Source:   Kaplan Prep Plus 2020

Sajjad1994 · Accepted Answer

Hello  iamsiddharthkapoor   Kunal760   gvij2017   neetib

Official Explanation

STEP 1: IDENTIFY THE QUESTION TYPE

This is a Weaken EXCEPT question. Look for an answer that strengthens the argument or that simply has no effect on the argument.

STEP 2: UNTANGLE THE STIMULUS

The recommendation is the final sentence, identified by the key word  “should.”  The conclusion states that  “the agency should advertise”  the available jobs to  “this year’s graduating class at the local law school”  and that this is the most efficient way to fill the vacancies. The evidence is that  “many lawyers are urgently needed”  to fill open positions at the agency.

STEP 3: PREDICT THE ANSWER

In this argument, the central assumption is that advertising to the local law school’s current graduating class is the most efficient way to fill the agency’s vacancies. The four incorrect answers will make the assumption less likely, thus weakening the recommendation. The one correct answer will either make it more likely that advertising in the recommended way will be the most efficient way to fill the vacancies or will be irrelevant to the conclusion.

STEP 4: EVALUATE THE CHOICES

(A)  has no effect on the conclusion and is correct. The agency doesn’t need to attract every or even many graduates for advertising at the law school to be the most effective strategy to fill its positions, and while corporate salaries may be higher, public interest salaries may still be high enough to attract enough new lawyers.

(B)  points out that the local law school is already providing information about the positions to its graduating class, making it less likely that the advertising will have any effect.

(C)  suggests that the graduating students would not be qualified to fill the positions at the agency and thus weakens the argument.

(D)  states that several of the agency’s vacancies are due to lawyers leaving the agency because of low pay, making it more likely that salaries, not advertising, are the issue.

(E)  makes it less likely that the agency’s advertising will have a receptive audience.

Answer: A

Hope it helps

siddharthkapoor · Answer

We are looking for an option that either increases our belief in the conclusion or has no impact on it. Only option B is one such option. It doesn't impact the conclusion at all, and thus doesn't weaken it.

Kunal760 · Answer

How is A the answer? If positions have higher salaries why will students take up job at non profit organization

gvij2017 · Answer

I don't understand how A is over B. 
In my view, B is irrelevant to argument and not a weakener.

B should be correct choice. 
Please explain why A.

neetib · Answer

Please explain how A is the answer ..

mimishyu · Answer

Can sb tell me where the original source of this question is…?I have same doubt as everyone—why could (A) be the correct answer???

Bunuel · Answer

The Source is Kaplan Prep Plus 2020. It's given in the first post as well as in the tags above the first post. The Official Explanation is given here: https://gmatclub.com/forum/public-inter ... l#p2380443 Hope it helps.

mimishyu · Answer

the “correct and official” logic behind those questions(such as this one) really perplex lots of students including me, just to say that the logic is very weird and incomprehensible to all of us, is there any better way we could use to grasp the logic???

Jokertrap · Answer

Makes absolutely no sense in my opinion. If there is already a school driven marketing campaign for every possible job, an additional job position or marketing campaign would even higher the chances that applicants would be recognizing the potential of this work field. It just doubles the chances.

I still can understand why you would pick a but i think its based on the assumption that graduates looking out for jobs would take wage cuts to work in the public sector because of their beliefs.

ocelot22 · Answer

I picked B initially. This is a very sublte question, and I am not quite sure whether to consider it low quality or high quality because of it, but my thinking upon review, is that if the school maintains a placement services and publicizes job openings, then there would be a lot of ads for job openings, and thus students may be less likely to see an ad from the non profit, so placing ads at the law school could be considered less of a great option. A, mentions salary which is no where in the argument which makes it weaken (albeit marginally) less than B.

Balkrishna · Answer

SajjadAhmad ,  GMATNinja ,

I have a doubt regarding option B.

If local law school maintains an active placement service for its graduates, then it can be the case that there are greater chances for non-profit agency to get the required number of lawyers. The scenario presented in the official explanation may also turn out. But we don't know. Official explanation for option B says that since law school is already proving information about job openings, openings at the non-profit organisation will not be noticed. Well, there may be opposite case too. If law school is very active in listing jobs, it is also possible that students are sincere about jobs posted by the law school; as a result, job openings at the non-profit organisation may not go unnoticed.

Similarly, there can be 2 sides of option A. Salary in corporate sector is higher than non-profit sector. Lawyer may or may not go with non-profit sector.

Option B is 2 a sided sword as option A is. I can't understand why only one side of option A is considered. It becomes easy to present reasoning when we know the correct answer but while solving this question, I faced the dilemma I presented above.

Can you please enlighten me what is wrong with my approach for option A and B?

Thank you.

archanam9449 · Answer

How can A be the correct answer? If the salary of the non-profit is lesser, then it will attract fewer students.

Public interest law focuses on the legal issues that affect the entire

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