PrepTest 101, Section 3, Question 17
The widespread staff reductions in a certain region's(54 more words not shown)
The argument in the passage(8 more words not shown)
- Aconcluding that since(17 more words not shown)
- Bconcluding that since(31 more words not shown)
- Carguing that since(24 more words not shown)
- Darguing that since(18 more words not shown)
- Econcluding that since(19 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Keeping your job doesn't necessarily mean keeping your income. A hairdresser might still be working while customers who have lost their jobs cut back on haircuts. The hairdresser could then buy less without having any extra money to put in savings.
There is also an obvious reason someone with an unchanged income might spend less: they're worried they'll be laid off next and want a financial cushion. The author seems to have that possibility in mind. If people were cutting back, the author expects their savings accounts to grow unusually quickly. Since that hasn't happened, the author concludes they haven't cut back.
But that test misses the hairdresser. Less money coming in can mean fewer purchases without extra savings. So we have a reason to doubt the argument, even though we can still describe exactly how it works.
What we’re looking for
The question asks for that description. Look for the move from “the result I expected didn't happen” to “the thing that would have produced it didn't happen either.” Here, the expected result is increased savings, and the supposed development is reduced spending by people who remain employed.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The author expects reduced spending to produce an unusual increase in savings. Seeing no such increase, the author concludes that spending hasn't decreased. This describes the reasoning; it doesn't require us to agree that reduced spending would always produce that result.
- B
We aren't given two predicted consequences, one observed and one missing. Nor does the author try to explain why an observed event couldn't have come from a particular behavior. The argument points to the absence of increased savings and uses it to deny reduced spending.
- C
The author doesn't argue that people act against their own financial interests only when they're mistaken or misinformed. There is no discussion of those causes of behavior. This answer supplies a different argument about why people make bad economic decisions.
- D
The author doesn't list two developments as the only possibilities and then select one of them. The evidence is that an expected consequence—extra savings—hasn't appeared. That's the basis for rejecting the claim about reduced spending.
- E
We may think the evidence leaves the spending question open, but the author doesn't present it that way. The author says spending is “clearly” undiminished, not that the evidence is ambiguous and unchanged spending is merely the likeliest explanation. Describe the author's treatment of the evidence, not our objection to it.
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