PrepTest 107, Section 4, Question 19
In the decade from the mid-1980s to the(52 more words not shown)
Each of the following contributes(11 more words not shown)
- AA large number(19 more words not shown)
- BEmployees who feel(14 more words not shown)
- CThe corporate downsizing(16 more words not shown)
- DMost of the(14 more words not shown)
- EIn the mid-1990s,(20 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Maybe people think the layoffs will happen to someone else.
We are told that corporate changes reduced job security. Yet workers' perceptions barely changed: 58 percent called their own jobs very secure in 1984, and 55 percent did so in 1994. People can feel safer than they really are, so an overly optimistic view of their own situation is one possible explanation.
I would also ask who was surveyed. If the sample included workers less exposed to the corporate changes, their answers might not reflect what was happening in the affected jobs. These are possible directions, not facts we have been given.
What we’re looking for
The question asks for the exception: four choices help explain the nearly unchanged perception, and one does not. Keep both sides of the puzzle in view. Actual security worsened during the decade, but confidence in one's own job stayed roughly similar. Each explanation has to help us understand those employees' answers at the two times.
Working the answers
- A
This helps. Many respondents work at small companies unaffected by the changes described. Someone employed at an unaffected local shop could reasonably feel secure while large corporations lay people off. Their presence in both surveys helps explain why the results do not mirror the loss of security at large companies.
- BCorrect
This tells us what people who already feel secure think about other people's jobs. We need to explain why they feel secure about their own jobs in the first place, despite the changes. B starts with that feeling and describes another belief that accompanies it. It never explains the feeling or why it changed so little between the surveys.
- C
This helps explain the lack of change. If workers already expected the downsizing before the 1984 survey, that expectation could already affect their answers then. The later arrival of anticipated cuts might not produce a large further drop in their perceived security. We are explaining the small difference between two snapshots, not assuming workers first learned of the risk in 1994.
- D
This helps through timing. Most major downsizing occurred shortly after the first survey, leaving many years before the second. By 1994, workers could regard that major round of cuts as behind them. D does not prove all risk disappeared, but it gives a reason the period's disruptions need not keep perceived security falling through the second survey.
- E
Greater optimism could partly offset the effect of worse circumstances on survey responses. People in 1994 might rate their own job prospects more favorably than equally situated people would have a decade earlier. That helps explain why perceptions changed little even though actual job security had worsened.
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