PrepTest 129, Section 2, Question 23
Taxi drivers, whose income is based on the(41 more words not shown)
The facts described above provide(9 more words not shown)
- AThe number of(16 more words not shown)
- BPeople work longer(12 more words not shown)
- CWorkers will accept(14 more words not shown)
- DPeople are willing(17 more words not shown)
- EPeople who are(17 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The drivers aim for an amount of money, not a fixed number of working hours. Imagine a daily target of $200. At an effective earning rate of $50 an hour, a driver could reach it in four hours; at $20 an hour, reaching it would take ten hours.
That makes the reported pattern understandable. Busy days let the drivers reach the target sooner, perhaps because they spend less time waiting between fares. On slow days they keep working longer to get to the same target.
What we’re looking for
We might have expected someone to keep working when the earnings come quickly and take time off when business is slow. These drivers do the opposite. The question asks which claim the facts provide evidence against, so we should find a statement that conflicts with that observed choice about working time.
Working the answers
- A
The income target might reflect financial needs. A driver who needs a certain amount each day could work however long reaching it takes. The passage does not establish that motive, but the behavior is compatible with it. We have no strong evidence against A.
- BCorrect
B says people work longer when their effective hourly wage is higher. The taxi drivers supply the opposite pattern: on busy days, they earn the target more quickly and work fewer hours. When earnings arrive more slowly, they work longer.
The example does not show that every worker everywhere behaves this way. It does provide direct evidence against the proposed general relationship between a high hourly earning rate and longer working hours.
- C
We are not told that the drivers accepted a lower wage in exchange for control of their schedules. They choose stopping times, but that does not establish a tradeoff between schedule freedom and pay. The passage cannot show whether they would reject or accept such a bargain.
- D
The drivers' longer hours on slow days could be an effort to maintain their standard of living. The passage does not explain their targets that way, but it does not contradict that explanation either. A claim about why they need the income differs from the described relationship between earning rate and hours worked.
- E
Fare-based income is a form of pay tied to the work produced, so the drivers are relevant to the first kind of worker mentioned. But we have no comparison with workers paid a fixed hourly wage, and no measure of relative efficiency. Finishing sooner on a busy day does not by itself show how efficiently the drivers work compared with that other group.
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