PT 46 S3 Q12 Forum

[rbrown0824]

Can someone help me work through this question? What I took away from the argument was that: a certain group of people making decisions (Computer experts) chose what excited them (or what they were interested in) as opposed to what was profitable. I eliminated (B), because it stands in contrast demonstrating something chosen for its profitability, and (E) because it didn't really relate to profitability in addition to the fact that the group made the decision based off the interests of the viewers and not their own personal interests. When left with (A), (C), and (D) I thought (C)'s failed to equate "serving the needs of the community" with profitability; I thought that (D) didn't establish that choosing a course in order to do less work was the same thing as doing something because you have an interest in it, so I eliminated it and went with (A).

[Daily_Double]

What I've done here is answer your question in parts in order to address each section of your post. In the first part, I'll break down the stimulus, and provide my own take on it. In the second part, I'll visit your thoughts on the stimulus and compare them to my own. In the third part I'll talk about your reasoning as you went through the answers.

Can someone help me work through this question?

Glad to! Let's first see what we're asked to do. "Conforms ... to the principle ... above?" Oh look, it's a Principle Match question! In this question type we have to first identify the principle in our stimulus, then we have to select an answer which illustrates that principle.

I'm going to focus on the first part (identifying the principle) here. Personally, I like to arrive at the principle by extending it from the stimulus. So below I've typed up my view on the stimulus, then below that, my prephrase of the principle. Take a look:

Stimulus: Computer experts, when asked to do an task for their company, were guided by their personal preferences despite the negative consequences (expensive, unreliable, unprofitable) of their decision upon their company.

Principle Prephrase: Representatives, acting on behalf on their Organization, can be misled by their personal preferences and as a result, act in a manner contrary to the interests of their Company/Organization.

They're similar to each other, sure. I only put them both because that's the way I think through these questions. When I'm reading through it the first time I'm trying to extract some sort of underlying assumption or claim. Then I pause and extend it further from the facts to arrive at a prephrased principle.

What I took away from the argument was that: a certain group of people making decisions (Computer experts) chose what excited them (or what they were interested in) as opposed to what was profitable.

Good. But that's important because of the impact it has upon the people who asked them (the company). You got the gist of it----people choose what they prefer instead of what they should have chosen----but the connection to the company ties the stimulus together. Profitability isn't the only negative consequences of the computer experts' actions, their choice brings in technology that is expensive, and unreliable as well. The combination of these things brings us to the second half of the principle: that these actions impact the company negatively.

And as a tip, principles on this test tend to distance themselves from the facts, similar to answers to flaw questions, you have to prephrase what the facts establish not just what the relevant facts are (which you did very well). So instead of not profitable, we have negative consequences. That's how easy principle questions are, you just have to extend the facts to where your prephrase doesn't really have much to do with the stimulus directly.

I eliminated (B), because it stands in contrast demonstrating something chosen for its profitability

True, profitability is mentioned in some sense here. But let's look at what this answer lacks. First, it lacks the separation in the stimulus. To fudge the facts a bit, in the stimulus an entry level employee makes a decision based upon his own desires that negatively impacts the company. We don't have that sort of chain of command feature here. Second, our principle has a negative impact upon the company/organization, and we don't know that profitable foods impact the supermarket in answer choice (B) negatively----in fact, choosing profitable foods for consumers as opposed to expensive healthy foods, may have a positive impact upon supermarkets. We don't know.

So it's the lack of the chain of command feature and the lack of a negative impact upon the larger organization that ruins this answer, not the supermarket's profitable choices. There's also a lack of personal preference guiding the negative impact. So three issues here!

(E) because it didn't really relate to profitability in addition to the fact that the group made the decision based off the interests of the viewers and not their own personal interests.

The second part of your analysis here was perfect. That's exactly why you should eliminate this answer----personal preferences weren't involved. But there's also the same issues with answer choice (B). We don't have the chain of command part of our principle, and we also lack the negative impact because sex and violence might very well be good for the television network.

When left with (A), (C), and (D) I thought (C)'s failed to equate "serving the needs of the community" with profitability; I thought that (D) didn't establish that choosing a course in order to do less work was the same thing as doing something because you have an interest in it, so I eliminated it and went with (A).

You might have noticed by now that we have developed three requirements of sorts for our answer: (1) Someone, functioning as part of an organization, (2) makes a decision based upon their personal preferences, that (3) has a negative impact upon the organization. I could have rewritten this and put this below my prephrase in the first part, but I think it is better this way as a sort of stream of consciousness because I didn't actually think about these requirements until I got to this point.

Let's look at (A) and (D).


In (A), we have the first requirement (part of an organization) met, the second requirement (personal preferences), but do we have the third? Or is it the case that these interests might be more valuable to the company than employees with the most education? I don't know, and that's great. Because when we don't know whether an answer does something, we know it's wrong.

In (D), we have the second requirement because students are lazy and make decisions based upon that laziness. But the first and third requirements are not present since the student's choices don't have a negative impact upon a larger organization, in fact, if they have any negative consequences at all, they are directed solely at the students.

Now we're left with (C). Let's see, first requirement? Check, librarians represent the interests of the community. Second requirement? Check, they choose books they enjoy reading. Third requirement? Check, check, check, that decision negatively affects the community they represent.

Points to Takeaway

This was a fun question, and if you didn't cling to the fact about profitability, and instead recognized that it was one of many facts about this chosen technology (expensive, unreliable), you would have seen that together the consequences of this choice are not that this software is merely unprofitable, but one that on the whole, it is bad for the larger organization. And if you saw that, this would have been a free point for you.

So in the future, on principle questions, note the important facts then broaden them. Stay away from the key words in the stimulus and instead use words in your prephrase to describe the effect of the ones in the stimulus. Basically, I'm suggesting that your prephrases here should be as simple as possible (e.g. people did X, that was bad for Y, because X did Z)

[rbrown0824]

Thanks for the explanation, I really appreciate your help. I guess I am just failing to see where it states that the business was harmed as a result of the computer experts making choices that are not the most profitable investments. Just because an idea isn't the "most profitable" doesn't necessary mean that it's harmful or has adverse consequences. I'm just not seeing how these two ideas are connected within the stimulus. I do see where it speaks of particular technologies being "highly expensive" and "full of bugs" but again, these ideas are used to illustrate that those technologies are "not the most profitable." Maybe I'm just so afraid of thinking outside of the box, that I'm missing something. I certainly see how "highly expensive" technologies and technologies "full of bugs" could be a problem, but we are never told whether or not they constitute one. In my mind, this company could be so profitable that highly expensive technologies that are full of bugs could be a negligible cost to fix. But I guess the fact that they even need to be addressed demonstrates the fact that they are indeed adverse consequences.

[Daily_Double]

Thanks for the explanation, I really appreciate your help. I guess I am just failing to see where it states that the business was harmed as a result of the computer experts making choices that are not the most profitable investments.

Let's back into it. Answer me this, would you agree that the employees motivations are not in line with those of their company?

[rbrown0824]

I would agree

[Daily_Double]

And is that not bad for the company/larger organization? Would having employees who act upon interests that are different than those of the organization not produce some negative effect in the circumstances mentioned in the stimulus?

A perhaps simpler way of looking at this is to convert the principle to the statement below. The way I did it was to oversimplify, because doing so makes principles pretty easy. That oversimplification lead to our discussion of what is "bad," besides Walter White. Remember, the point I'm making is that you have to look at the effect of the words in the stimulus, and to do that you must stray from the notion of profitability.

A person, representing a larger organization or business, has personal preferences that conflict with the motivations of the larger organization or business.

Does this clear things up? Or does that reopen answer choice (A) in your mind?

[rbrown0824]

Actually that clears it up!! Thanks alot