PrepTest 134, Section 1, Question 10
History provides many examples of technological innovations being(33 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(10 more words not shown)
- APeople correctly believe(7 more words not shown)
- BPeople are often(6 more words not shown)
- CSome examples of(7 more words not shown)
- DPeople tend to(7 more words not shown)
- EPeople correctly believe(8 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Wanting to keep your job isn't the same as resisting change just because it's change.
“Social inertia” means a tendency to keep things as they are. The author sees workers resist new technology despite miserable working conditions and concludes that this tendency matters more to them than comfort or safety. But why assume inertia explains their resistance? A worker could have a specific concern about what the new technology would do.
I'd also want to know whether the workers understood any benefits the innovation might bring. Someone who doesn't expect safer or more comfortable work hasn't necessarily chosen habit over those benefits. We can't confidently rank their motives just from the fact that they resisted.
What we’re looking for
We're asked to undermine the reasoning. Give us another explanation for the resistance, or show why it doesn't establish that social inertia outweighed concern for the workers' welfare.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Workers correctly believe that new technology often causes job loss. That supplies a concrete reason to resist it: a machine could make the work easier while eliminating the worker's job. Someone might reasonably prefer an unpleasant job with a paycheck to no job at all.
Now the resistance needn't reflect habit overpowering comfort or safety. It could reflect concern for income and job security, which also affect how comfortable and secure a person's life is. The author focuses on conditions inside the workplace and overlooks what losing the work could mean. A doesn't prove the motivation behind every historical case; it makes the author's explanation much less secure.
- B
Reluctance to take on new challenges is compatible with a tendency to stay with familiar arrangements. It doesn't give us the distinct practical concern that challenges the author's explanation. We also aren't told that the reluctance described caused these particular workers' resistance.
- C
Some workers accepting some innovations doesn't erase the many examples of resistance. Think of saying most basketball players are tall and being told that a short player exists: the exception doesn't by itself defeat the broader claim. Here, C gives no reason to reinterpret the resisted innovations or the motives behind that resistance.
- D
Adapting easily when a change is gradual doesn't tell us why workers resisted the historical innovations. We aren't told those innovations were introduced gradually, and successful adjustment after a change is different from the motivation for opposing it beforehand. D doesn't supply the alternative explanation we need.
- E
Higher productivity is a possible benefit of technology, not an explanation of the workers' resistance. Believing that machines increase output doesn't itself tell us whether workers expect greater comfort, worry about losing their jobs, or simply prefer familiar methods. We would have to add a connection to their motives that E never states.
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