University president: Our pool of applicants has been shrinking over

Hello, why is D not the correct answer? Could you please explain how A is correct?

Thanks

why A is correct answer here, experts please explain

B and C were close

I am also keen on knowing why A is the correct answer, and not D

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He has already mentioned 'one of the possible explanations' in the passage. So, D is out.

The confusion is between (A) and (D).
I believe other options are easy to eliminate.

Negating (A) says that the given explaination is not applicable to the argument which means higher tuition means better education does not apply and hence breaks the argument.
Negating (C) says there are additional explanations to the decline of applicant pool but this does not eliminate the possibility the the given reasoning in the argument in not valid hence making (A) a better choice.

University president: Our pool of applicants has been shrinking over the past few years. One possible explanation of this unwelcome phenomenon is that we charge too little for tuition and fees. Prospective students and their parents conclude that the quality of education they would receive at this institution is not as high as that offered by institutions with higher tuition. So, if we want to increase the size of our applicant pool, we need to raise our tuition and fees.[/quote]

Understand : Pool of applicants is decreasing . fewer applicants are applying to university
possible explanation : too little tuition fee.
students' and parents' thinking : less fees low quality
conclusion : if we want to increase pool , we NEED to raise fee.

Think: President provides a possible (NOT FACTUAL /may or may not be true) explanation for pool reduction. Then he makes a VERY STRONG conclusion : we NEED TO RAISE (need = requirement). He says if we dont raise, the pool WILL NOT INCREASE.
This is major leap : a possible explanation >> requirement .
what if this "possible" explanation is ACTUALLY not the problem and something else is ? If something else is then is RAISING FEES a NEED?? noo. We still may come up with another explanation and work on that and sort the pool reduction problem. WE can doubt the applicability of this explanation as it is NOT AN ESTABLISHED FACT BUT PRESIDENT'S POINT OF VIEW. A point of view can be challenged.

- True. He assumes this. If he doesnt assume this , then why the hell would he even try to say something?? Negate this and youll find the above explanation ( THINK) plausible.

-This weaken the conclusion : If quality = fees , then the university may actually be *** all. Also this is parent's reasoning.

-The later outcome of raising the fees is not our concern. THis is the later stage . WE are concerned about what will happen IF WE DONT RAISE. Not what will happen AFTER WE RAISE. The president is concerned about not current situation , not later.

- Let us say there is ADDITIONAL EXPLANATION. But are we sure that the possible explanation is not valid?? Even if there is an additional explanation , the possible explanation may still REQUIRE US TO RAISE THE FEES. the keyword here is "additional" . If it were a strengthen question , then this choice would have been right. BUT assumption is MUST BE TRUE . So if there is even a slightest possibility that conclusion may stand , then this isnt a MUST BE TRUE situation.

- Let ussay it HAS increased. But what if we still NEED TO increase further to fit the parents' reaoning??

Answered the question CORRECTLY. Time taken to solve 2 min. 37 sec.

PRETHINK / OBSERVE / ELIMINATE MY WAY TO SOLVE CR ( prethinking takes me about 4-10 seconds)


PRETHINKING: The number of applicants reduced ---> Why? low tuition is associated with low quality education. How long does it last ? Few years and IT IS PHENOMENEN. the word in red is a key to a correct answer, everything the rest is crystal clear.

With this in mind OBSERVE & ELIMINATE:

(A) the proposed explanation for the decline in applications applies in this case ( the phrase "in this case" is very likely to indicate that is is phenomen - KEEP IT)

(B) the quality of a university education is dependent on the amount of tuition charged by the university ( INCORRECT- reiterates the same, AND we are looking for assumtption )

(C) an increase in tuition and fees at the university would guarantee a larger applicant pool (WRONG we dont know this because the university president says that "one possible explanation"

(D) there is no additional explanation for the university’s shrinking applicant pool " (WRONG we dont know this because the university president says that "one possible explanation"

(E) the amount charged by the university for tuition has not increased in recent years ( INCORRECT we are not concerned about tuiton fees, WE ARE CONCERNED ABOUT DRASTIC DECLINE IN A NUMBER OF STUDENTS) IT IS NOT A PRIMARY OF IDEA OF ARGUMENT.


After eliminating B, C, D, E , we are left with A. C`est fini

Hi VeritasKarishma

Can you elaborate (B) further?


If I negate this option I get:


If there is no co-relationship between the quality of education and amount of tutions fees as per students and parents perspective,
will not author's claim fall apart? Do we challenge third party claim (e.g. students/parents claim) on its face value?

A. the proposed explanation for the decline in applications applies in this case. The argument has a logical gap from "what can be a possible explanation for the decrease in applicant pool" to "suggestion of the proposal to increase tuition fee to counter this issue". The author makes a jump from "what could have been one of the reasons" to "already accepting it as a probable reason in this case and offering a solution" based on it. Hence, A.

B. the quality of a university education is dependent on the amount of tuition charged by the university. We have been asked of what is the assumption made by the author. This is the assumption made by the parents not the author. The author takes it as the parents perspective, does not question, doubt or confirm it. It is the same thing as a YouTuber saying people are moving towards kale based smoothies because they think that kale helps detoxify body in week so, as I want to have maximum views, my next video will be about kale based smoothies. So the YouTuber does not makes the assumption herself, she just moves forward with the information. Irrelevant.

C. an increase in tuition and fees at the university would guarantee a larger applicant pool. The author just considers the increase in fees as a probable solution. The outcomes or the likeliness of success is out of scope.

D. there is no additional explanation for the university’s shrinking applicant pool. Even if there are a lot of other explanations, the author just chose to go with this one. The presence or absence of other explanations is irrelevant to the argument. Say there are also multiple other factors involved such as migration of families to other states, or over all per capita decrease in income, etc but the author decided to tackle this reason. The argument still remains valid.

E. the amount charged by the university for tuition has not increased in recent years. Irrelevant to the argument since the argument says that the fees is considerably lower than that of other schools. So there might have been increases or not, the fees is still very low.

Bumping for discussion. A great LSAT assumption question that really pushes on your ability to identify and negate properly without making further assumptions.

Pre-thinking -
Parents and students think Quality education is proportional to the tuition fees.
President think that one of the reason he gave for the shrinking pool is actually the reason here this time.

Eliminated B,C and E
Between A and D
A negation - The proposed explanation for the decline in applications do not apply to this case. Shatters the conclusion
D negation - There is an additional explanation for the university's shrinking pool applicants. So, there can be an additional explanation to the shrinking pool phenomena but would the current explanation not apply then. It still would. Eliminated D.

Answer is A

Sometimes, the logic in the answer is so simple, that it's actually difficult

(A) the proposed explanation for the decline in applications applies in this case
- Absolutely correct! if the explanation given is not applicable, then the conclusion cannot be drawn

(B) the quality of a university education is dependent on the amount of tuition charged by the university
- Not necessarily. It's just the perception of parents and students.

(C) an increase in tuition and fees at the university would guarantee a larger applicant pool
- Again, not necessary. It's just the perception!.

(D) there is no additional explanation for the university’s shrinking applicant pool
- Tempting. But even if there is an additional explanation, it can be a minor influence compared to the fees .

(E) the amount charged by the university for tuition has not increased in recent years
- Tempting. But even after the increase, the fees may be low in parents' perception.

Correct A; It's so obvious, that it isn't obvious

University president: Our pool of applicants has been shrinking over the past few years. One possible explanation of this unwelcome phenomenon is that we charge too little for tuition and fees. Prospective students and their parents conclude that the quality of education they would receive at this institution is not as high as that offered by institutions with higher tuition. So, if we want to increase the size of our applicant pool, we need to raise our tuition and fees.

The university president’s argument requires the assumption that

(A) the proposed explanation for the decline in applications applies in this case CORRECT
-a simple, yet non-tempting answer
(B) the quality of a university education is dependent on the amount of tuition charged by the university
-argument doesn't die if we negate
(C) an increase in tuition and fees at the university would guarantee a larger applicant pool
-argument doesn't die if we negate
-this choice confuses necessary versus sufficient condition
-an increase in tuition fees may be necessary for increasing the pool, but not sufficient
(D) there is no additional explanation for the university’s shrinking applicant pool
-trap choice
-the author acknowledges that there can be other explanations so it's perfectiyl permissible that there are other explanations
(E) the amount charged by the university for tuition has not increased in recent years
-argument doesn't die if we negate, actually strengthens

At first sight, A looks weird and might sound too straight-forward to be right. But the other options are either out and out incorrect or out of scope. So by POE, has to be A.

Hello Team,

Please let me know is this valid gmat question?

If it is, then I have a query.
Until last line, we can say that relation between quality of education and fees is the idea proposed by Parents. But as per last line, U'sity president stated that to inc the size of our applicant pool, we need to raise tuition and fees.
It means he also believes the same what has been proposed by parents.Now it is longer the idea of only parents.
Hence op B can be correct.

Please let me know where I am faltering.

I faltered just as you did in this one, falling for B.
But "KarishmaB" has beautifully explained above why B is wrong. It takes the idea of the President's claim about parents/students' perspective in the passage and moulds accordingly to infer another result. This is a mistake that we are making.
For similar reasons D also fails. A ---> B does not mean Not A ---> Not B.

Hope you understand.

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