PrepTest 112, Section 4, Question 16
Sales manager: The highest priority should be given(49 more words not shown)
The shipping manager criticizes the(6 more words not shown)
- Athat the sales(14 more words not shown)
- Bthe ambiguity of(4 more words not shown)
- Cthat departments other(9 more words not shown)
- Dan absurd consequence(13 more words not shown)
- Ethat the sales(8 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The company needs sales. It also needs something to sell.
That is why the sales manager's reason doesn't settle which department should come first. A department responsible for making the product could use the same reasoning: without our success, the company fails, so give us the highest priority. The shipping manager points out that several departments could make this kind of claim. That doesn't show sales is unimportant. It shows that being indispensable hasn't distinguished sales from the others.
What we’re looking for
The question asks how the shipping manager criticizes the argument. The response takes the apparent rule behind it—being necessary earns the highest priority—and applies it to the other necessary departments. The shipping manager says we cannot give them all that priority. So the rule produces a result the reply treats as impossible, instead of establishing sales as the one department that should come first.
Working the answers
- A
The shipping manager doesn't deny that the company needs successful sales. Several departments can each be required. Showing that the company also needs production or shipping doesn't remove its need for sales. A would be a different objection, one attacking the claim that sales is essential.
- B
The two managers aren't using 'highest priority' in different senses. The reply accepts the idea of being put first and questions why this reason would entitle sales alone to that position. We can understand the term and still find the reasoning inadequate.
- C
The reply says other departments must function successfully too. It doesn't rank them above sales. Nor does their shared necessity automatically establish that they are equally important in every respect. The point is simply that the sales manager's stated reason is available to several departments, so it doesn't settle the ranking.
- DCorrect
If every department needed for success earned the highest priority, several departments would each qualify for it. The shipping manager says that result is impossible. Applying the sales manager's apparent rule more broadly therefore exposes a problem with the rule.
The response doesn't have to decide which department really deserves priority. It shows why this argument for selecting sales doesn't work: the same reasoning would give incompatible claims to all the other indispensable departments.
- E
No sample is being used to infer a general pattern. The sales manager argues from the department's importance to a recommendation about its priority. The shipping manager applies that rationale to additional departments; there is no claim that a selected case is unusually representative or unrepresentative.
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