PrepTest 117, Section 4, Question 9
Manager: When Sullivan was passed over for promotion,(32 more words not shown)
The manager's argument is most(11 more words not shown)
- ASullivan was well(4 more words not shown)
- Bage is only(12 more words not shown)
- Cpeople often associate(6 more words not shown)
- Dthe people older(9 more words not shown)
- ESullivan's employer tries(7 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Were those other promotions comparable to Sullivan's?
Sullivan was much older than the people competing with him, and people say that cost him the promotion. The manager points to employees older than Sullivan who were recently promoted. That shows older employees can receive promotions. It doesn't yet show what happened in this particular competition.
Maybe the other promotions involved different jobs or different demands. A promotion to a junior supervisory position, for example, might be assessed differently from one to a senior executive position. That is a possible difference to investigate, not something we know about these promotions. The manager needs the comparison to bear on the decision about Sullivan.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw question, I'd look for a meaningful difference between the other promotion contests and Sullivan's. The fact that some older employees succeeded doesn't automatically rule out age making the difference when Sullivan competed.
Working the answers
- A
Being qualified doesn't establish why Sullivan lost. Several candidates could have been qualified, with the decision turning on some other factor. The passage doesn't already establish that he was well qualified, but adding that fact wouldn't identify what is wrong with using the other promotions as evidence about this competition.
- B
Age being one factor among several doesn't settle whether it was the deciding factor. Other considerations could have mattered while age ultimately tipped the decision, or another factor could have done so. B therefore doesn't identify the specific problem with the manager's comparison. It is neither proof that age decided the result nor proof that it didn't.
- C
People can associate age with experience and good judgment without making every promotion decision on that basis. We still need to know what affected Sullivan's competition. This general association doesn't show why the other promotions fail to rule out age as the deciding factor here.
- DCorrect
This gives a different comparison problem from my example about the jobs themselves: the older employees who succeeded had no younger competitors. Promoting them therefore tells us nothing about whether the employer would favor a younger person when one was available.
Imagine one contest with only older candidates and another with both older and younger candidates. An employer could favor youth in the second contest while still promoting an older employee in the first. The recent promotions and age counting against Sullivan could both be true. The manager's evidence doesn't rule that out.
- E
Keeping deliberations confidential doesn't tell us which factor decided Sullivan's case. The employer could keep fair decisions secret, unfair decisions secret, or both. Secrecy alone doesn't establish the relevant difference between Sullivan's competition and the other promotions.
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