PrepTest 129, Section 3, Question 5
Hernandez: I recommend that staff cars be replaced(48 more words not shown)
In the conversation, Hernandez responds(10 more words not shown)
- Aby explicitly qualifying(4 more words not shown)
- Bby criticizing salespeople(8 more words not shown)
- Cby disputing the(4 more words not shown)
- Dby changing the(7 more words not shown)
- Eby indicating that(5 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Keeping usable cars for another year sounds like a sensible way to save money. Hernandez's recommendation depends on the cars still being in good condition after three years. If they are, replacing them automatically could mean buying new cars sooner than necessary.
Green points to salespeople whose large territories wear their cars out within three years. Those cars may need replacing. But how many cars are we talking about? If it were only 1 percent of the fleet, perhaps the company could replace those cars while keeping the others longer. We are not told the proportion, so the existence of some heavily used cars does not settle what the company should do with every car.
Hernandez's reply takes a more specific route: the original statement concerned cars subjected to normal use. Hernandez is clarifying the scope of the earlier claim that three-year-old cars remain in good condition. Heavily used cars fall outside that clarified claim.
What we’re looking for
The question asks us to describe the response, not decide on the best replacement policy. I'd call it a clarification or qualification: Hernandez limits an earlier premise to the normal-use cases.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The earlier premise was that three-year-old cars are still in good condition. Hernandez now qualifies it by specifying cars subjected to normal use. “Qualifying” here means adding a limitation to the claim, which is exactly what the reply does.
- B
Hernandez does not criticize the salespeople. A criticism might say that they unnecessarily take scenic routes and should drive fewer miles. Instead, Hernandez distinguishes normal use from the heavier use Green describes, without blaming anyone for it.
- C
Hernandez does not say Green's examples are inaccurate or deny that some cars wear out within three years. The reply can accept those examples while clarifying that the original premise concerned cars used normally. Narrowing the claim is different from disputing the evidence.
- D
Green introduced the large territories to explain why some cars wear out sooner. That is relevant to the replacement policy, not a change to an unrelated subject. Hernandez's response concerns the scope of the earlier claim about car condition.
- E
Watch the speaker. Hernandez clarifies Hernandez's own earlier language; the reply does not accuse Green of using a phrase with multiple meanings. Even if we describe the original statement as ambiguous about which cars it covered, that ambiguity belongs to Hernandez's statement.
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