PrepTest 125, Section 2, Question 9
Museum visitor: The national government has mandated a(53 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(9 more words not shown)
- ASome of the(11 more words not shown)
- BThe museum's revenue(11 more words not shown)
- CSome of the(10 more words not shown)
- DThe annual number(8 more words not shown)
- ENot all visitors(10 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Does a higher minimum wage actually raise these employees' pay? If the minimum goes from $10 to $10.50, someone already earning $15 doesn't automatically get a raise.
The visitor says the mandate will significantly increase the museum's expenses, though, and predicts higher admission fees or fewer services because revenue doesn't exceed expenses. Even accepting that expense increase, I have questions about the next step. Could the museum use savings or borrow money? A museum losing $10 a day might not need an immediate change if it had a billion dollars in the bank. Those are hypothetical possibilities, but they show why income and expenses aren't the whole financial picture.
And how will visitors actually be hurt? A ticket rising from $10 to $15 might matter a great deal to one visitor and barely register with another. The visitor's conclusion depends on what those changes do to the public, not just on whether a fee changes.
What we’re looking for
We're asked for a required assumption. I'd look for something the argument needs along that chain: the mandate raises costs, the museum responds, and the response harms visitors. My later objections concern the response and its effect: why must the museum pass the cost along, and why must that harm its visitors?
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Some employees are not paid significantly more than the minimum wage. Read the negative carefully: at least some pay is near the legal floor. That brings us back to the question we raised at the start. A small increase in the floor can affect those wages; it wouldn't directly require a raise if everyone already earned far above the new minimum.
The passage states that the mandate will increase expenses, which can make this answer feel as though it revisits something already settled. But A identifies the wage circumstance that the visitor's reasoning relies on for that stated effect. It needn't establish every later step or answer our questions about savings and visitors. It supplies a required part of the particular wage-cost explanation.
- B
Admission revenue needn't have been constant for five years. It could have risen or fallen before reaching its current level. Either history is compatible with the visitor's argument about what this new mandate will do.
- C
Maybe every employee currently earns the minimum wage. The visitor's wage-cost reasoning could still work. We need some employees close to the floor, not some employees above it. This is why the negative in A matters.
- D
A steady increase in visitors is not required. Attendance could have stayed flat or declined. The argument still asks what the new wage requirement will do to costs and services now.
- E
Perhaps young children enter free, or perhaps everyone pays. Neither policy is required for the proposed connection between higher labor costs and harm to visitors. This adds a detail about admissions that the argument doesn't need.
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