PrepTest 105, Section 2, Question 25
Tom: Employers complain that people graduating from high(69 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(11 more words not shown)
- AIt analyzes an(11 more words not shown)
- BIt argues that(10 more words not shown)
- CIt provides information(11 more words not shown)
- DIt presents a(10 more words not shown)
- EIt defends an(8 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What kinds of part-time jobs does Tom have in mind? Learning on a job can be valuable without every available job teaching the particular skills employers need. Working in a restaurant, for example, might develop useful skills while leaving some office skills unaddressed. I'd want Tom to connect the proposed work to the skills he wants students to gain.
Mary raises a different, more immediate problem: where will the students get these jobs? There already aren't enough positions for the students who want them. A rule requiring everybody to work doesn't itself create more openings.
Even if we grant that the right jobs would teach exactly the right skills, Tom's plan still needs those jobs to be available. Mary challenges that practical requirement.
What we’re looking for
The question asks how her response relates to his argument. We should describe her actual objection, not substitute our initial concern about job training. She points out a shortage that undermines something his proposal takes for granted.
Working the answers
- A
The shortage is already present. Mary doesn't argue that adopting Tom's policy would create a shortage or produce some other new bad outcome. She uses the existing shortage to question whether the proposed requirement can do what Tom wants.
An obstacle to carrying out a plan is different from a harmful consequence of carrying it out. This answer confuses those roles.
- B
Mary doesn't establish that the shortage of skills is an unavoidable trend. Showing that this particular proposal faces an obstacle wouldn't show that no proposal could improve the situation. Nor does she claim the current shortage of jobs must last forever. Her point is that requiring work doesn't itself provide the needed jobs.
- C
Tom explicitly says that employers complain about missing skills and that those skills are best acquired on the job. Mary can accept both claims while pointing out the lack of available positions.
Tom never explicitly states that enough part-time jobs exist. That is what his proposed solution takes for granted, so Mary's response challenges an assumption rather than contradicting one of his stated premises.
- DCorrect
The consideration is the existing shortage of jobs, together with the fact that a requirement doesn't create them. The assumption is that students can obtain the part-time work through which Tom expects them to acquire the needed skills.
Mary doesn't need to show that no student can find a job. Too few positions for even the willing students already puts pressure on a plan requiring students generally to work. His intended route from requirement to work experience depends on an opportunity that she says is missing for many students.
- E
Mary offers no alternative training program or other solution. She criticizes Tom's plan. A response can show why a proposed solution may fail without supplying a replacement, and that is what she does here.
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