PrepTest 122, Section 2, Question 8
1990 editorial: Local pay phone calls have cost(45 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(7 more words not shown)
- AA pay phone(10 more words not shown)
- BDue to inflation,(13 more words not shown)
- CGovernment regulation of(13 more words not shown)
- DBetween the 1970s(20 more words not shown)
- ETechnological advances made(9 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Soda costs more now. Why does that settle what a phone call should cost?
I'm open to the idea that phone companies should be allowed to raise their prices. But agreeing with the recommendation doesn't make this particular reason convincing. The editorial relies on the fact that calls and soft drinks once cost about the same, followed by a rise in the price of soft drinks.
What we’re looking for
The two prices don't have to move together. To weaken the argument, I'd look for a relevant difference between providing a phone call and selling a soft drink. Something explaining why the comparison fails would undermine the support for the recommendation, even without proving that phone companies should never raise their prices.
Working the answers
- A
This compares the cost of the machines themselves. The editorial compares the price of a call with the price of a drink. Knowing that a pay phone cost less than a vending machine in the 1970s doesn't show how the costs of supplying calls and drinks changed afterward. It doesn't give us the relevant difference behind the price increases.
- B
This gives the editorial more company: prices of most goods doubled, too. That could make a proposed increase in phone-call prices seem more reasonable. It doesn't show why phone calls should be treated differently from soft drinks, so it doesn't weaken the comparison.
- C
Regulations didn't become stricter, but what follows about whether the price should rise? C doesn't compare the economics of phone calls and drinks or explain why the old prices should change together. A fact about how regulation changed doesn't answer the editorial's proposed justification.
- DCorrect
The costs behind the two products changed differently. Soft-drink ingredients became more expensive at a greater rate than telephone equipment did. That gives us a reason the drink price might have risen faster without implying that phone-call prices deserve the same treatment.
D doesn't prove the existing phone price is right or that equipment is the only cost of phone service. It weakens the argument we were given by showing why the soft-drink comparison may be a poor guide.
- E
More sophisticated equipment isn't necessarily more expensive equipment. Technological advances could raise costs or lower them; this answer doesn't tell us. And sophistication by itself doesn't establish that the drink-price comparison is misleading. We shouldn't invent a cost change the answer never supplies.
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