PrepTest 121, Section 4, Question 6
In the first phase of the Industrial Revolution,(59 more words not shown)
The examples presented above best(7 more words not shown)
- AEmployers utilize new(9 more words not shown)
- BWorkers will need(13 more words not shown)
- CIn seeking employment,(11 more words not shown)
- DTechnology eliminates many(8 more words not shown)
- EWhereas technological innovations(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The workers being replaced have changed. The employers' interest in saving money hasn't.
At first, machines let a few skilled workers do work that had required many unskilled workers. Even if each skilled worker cost more, needing far fewer people could make the technology economically attractive. Now managers want technology that lets them replace highly paid skilled workers with fewer, less-skilled workers. That offers another route to lowering the wage bill: fewer employees, with less costly skills.
What we’re looking for
The question asks which general proposition these examples illustrate. I want the common thread, not a prediction about the entire future of employment. In both cases, employers are interested in technology because it can reduce labor costs. Which workers it replaces differs, but the economic motive stays the same.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Both examples show employers using or seeking technology to reduce labor costs. The first emphasizes replacing many workers with a few; the second adds replacing highly paid workers with less-skilled workers. A states the shared reason without requiring the two changes to affect the same kinds of employees.
- B
The passage doesn't establish that more education and skills will protect workers' jobs. In fact, the modern managers are looking for ways to replace skilled workers. We shouldn't turn a description of employers' cost-saving efforts into advice that additional education will necessarily keep workers competitive.
- C
Wanting to replace skilled workers doesn't mean employers have already found a way to do so, much less that skill has lost every advantage in the labor market. A skilled worker could still be valuable in many jobs while managers seek cheaper ways to perform some tasks. C makes a sweeping present-day claim the examples don't establish.
- D
Where do we get “just as many”? The first change does leave jobs for some skilled workers, but it replaces many workers with only a few. The passage gives us no basis for saying newly created jobs exactly balance eliminated jobs across the economy. Creating some jobs isn't the same as replacing every job lost.
- E
We haven't been given a comparison of heavy industry with other industries. Nor do the examples tell us that technological innovation now affects every industry. E introduces both an industrial history and an all-industries claim beyond the information provided.
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