PrepTest 119, Section 2, Question 11
Career consultant: The most popular career advice suggests(52 more words not shown)
The career consultant's reasoning is(9 more words not shown)
- Abases a conclusion(18 more words not shown)
- Bignores the possibility(17 more words not shown)
- Cignores the possibility(13 more words not shown)
- Dinfers from the(15 more words not shown)
- Ebases a conclusion(15 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Joking about your weaknesses with the people you manage isn't the same as advertising those weaknesses to the person deciding whether to hire you.
The advice concerns presenting yourself to employers: emphasize strengths and downplay weaknesses. Maybe overselling yourself could land you in a job you aren't equipped to do, so I'm willing to consider that the advice has problems. But let's see whether this study actually establishes one.
The study asks how employees perceive their managers. A manager who makes a self-deprecating joke might seem approachable or thoughtful. That doesn't tell us how an employer will react when a job applicant makes the same joke. The applicant might instead seem unqualified. Who is evaluating whom matters here.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw question, that's the change I want to capture. The evidence concerns employees' reactions to managers; the conclusion concerns how someone should present themselves to employers. The consultant treats the responses of those different audiences as interchangeable.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Map the groups carefully. The people responding in the study are employees who hear their managers joke about themselves. The people whose responses matter to the career advice are employers evaluating someone who might work for them. A favorable reaction from the first group doesn't establish a favorable reaction from the second. The different relationship could change how the same self-deprecation is received.
- B
Perhaps employees liked the willingness to admit a weakness more than the humor. That would still leave the relevant problem untouched: we have evidence about employees reacting to managers, not employers reacting to applicants. The argument doesn't need the humorous part to be what caused the favorable reaction in order to challenge advice about downplaying weaknesses.
- C
Other humor might be even more popular. But the consultant isn't claiming that self-deprecating humor is the best possible way to make a good impression. The aim is to challenge advice against drawing attention to weaknesses. A different kind of joke being more effective wouldn't identify the audience mismatch in that challenge.
- D
The consultant never concludes that nonhumorous self-deprecation would be viewed negatively. We hear a study about humor and a criticism of career advice, but no comparison ruling out a favorable response to nonhumorous self-deprecation. Don't attribute a new claim to the argument.
- E
An objection to one part of a recommendation can be enough to show that the recommendation needs changing. If downplaying weaknesses really were bad advice, the consultant wouldn't also have to disprove emphasizing strengths. The actual problem is that this study doesn't establish the claimed problem with the advice, because it examines a different audience.
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