PrepTest 120, Section 4, Question 25
Inflation rates will not stabilize unless the rate(35 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(14 more words not shown)
- AIf factory safety(39 more words not shown)
- BIf the board(39 more words not shown)
- COnly if we(49 more words not shown)
- DIf we are(40 more words not shown)
- EIf honesty is(39 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Getting all the world's leaders to cooperate sounds difficult. I can see why the author is pessimistic. But let's be precise about how that pessimism reaches the conclusion.
Stable inflation requires slower economic growth. Slower growth, in turn, requires full cooperation among world leaders. So the desired outcome depends on a first step, and that step depends on something else. The author treats that last requirement as a serious obstacle and predicts that we shouldn't expect the original outcome soon.
What we’re looking for
The passage doesn't explicitly tell us that cooperation will fail. It relies on our accepting the difficulty of getting it. For the parallel question, we need that same kind of reasoning: an outcome requires a step, that step brings a further obstacle, and the author concludes that the outcome won't be achieved. An answer that merely repeats a requirement, or recommends paying the price, ends in a different place.
Working the answers
- A
Employee participation is required for the safety improvement, and the conclusion says the improvement won't happen without participation. That stays conditional: if people don't cooperate, we won't get the result. The original goes further and predicts that we shouldn't expect stable inflation. A never makes a comparable prediction that improved safety won't occur.
- B
This starts with a similar chain: efficiency requires eliminating redundancy, which requires dismissing some senior employees. But the conclusion accepts the last step and says we must dismiss them. To match the original, it would need to treat those dismissals as an obstacle and predict that efficiency won't improve. It chooses the required step instead.
- C
An optimal decision requires examining all options, and that examination requires delay. So the conclusion connects the two ends: an optimal decision requires delay. It doesn't predict that we won't get an optimal decision. Naming what success requires isn't the same as predicting that success will not happen.
- DCorrect
The safest vehicles correspond to stable inflation, and objective structural tests correspond to slower economic growth. The tests bring huge cost overruns, just as slowing growth requires cooperation among world leaders. Each argument treats that final condition as an obstacle and concludes that the original goal won't be achieved.
D doesn't establish that accepting the cost overruns is impossible, just as the original doesn't expressly establish that world cooperation is impossible. The match is the move from a demanding condition along the chain to a pessimistic conclusion about the outcome.
- E
This gives a reason not to report poor performance: doing so would threaten jobs and upset shareholders. It recommends avoiding an action because of its consequences. The original doesn't recommend abandoning stable inflation because its consequences are undesirable; it predicts that stable inflation is unlikely because of what achieving it requires.
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