PrepTest 105, Section 4, Question 6
Willett: Lopez and Simmons, a married couple, have(89 more words not shown)
The main conclusion of Willett's(3 more words not shown)
- ALopez and Simmons(10 more words not shown)
- BEvritech Corporation's rule(14 more words not shown)
- CLopez and Simmons(17 more words not shown)
- DEvritech Corporation should(24 more words not shown)
- EEvritech Corporation is(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Losing a job offer is a drawback. It doesn't automatically make honesty foolish.
Maybe Lopez and Simmons have other attractive job options and would rather disclose the marriage than conceal it. Or perhaps they care enough about being straightforward that keeping both offers isn't their only priority. Willett hasn't told us how to weigh those considerations.
The practical plan also deserves a closer look. Willett says they could hide the marriage initially and later claim to have married after being hired.
That later claim would be false. Even if keeping the marriage private initially is easy, the account of when they married could be checked. And a policy allowing employees to marry doesn't necessarily answer what would happen if a false account were discovered.
What we’re looking for
Those are questions about how persuasive Willett's advice is. The main-conclusion question asks something simpler: what is Willett trying to persuade us to believe? The answer is that disclosing the marriage before starting these jobs would be foolish. Losing an offer is the stated cost; the proposed concealment plan is meant to show how they could avoid it. Both support that criticism of the couple's decision.
Working the answers
- A
Applying for the jobs is different from disclosing the marriage. Willett wants the couple to preserve both offers, which assumes they can seek the jobs while handling the disclosure differently. The argument doesn't conclude that applying was the mistake.
- B
Willett relies on the hiring rule having a consequence: one offer will be withdrawn if the marriage is revealed. The proposed way around it is to keep the relevant fact hidden, not to rely on a general pattern of nonenforcement. B isn't the conclusion or a fact the passage establishes.
- CCorrect
This restates the criticism of their decision to reveal the marriage at the present stage. The timing matters because Willett distinguishes the hiring rule from the policy toward employees who marry after being hired.
C doesn't require us to endorse that plan or conclude that a later false claim would be safe. It identifies Willett's position: before they have started working there, volunteering the marriage information would be unwise.
- D
This would criticize the consistency of Evritech's policies. Willett instead takes those policies as the situation the couple should navigate. The conclusion concerns what Lopez and Simmons should reveal, not what the corporation should permit.
- E
The idea that the couple can easily keep the marriage secret supports Willett's advice. If disclosure can be avoided, Willett thinks losing an offer is an unnecessary cost. That makes E a reason for the criticism, not the criticism itself.
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