PrepTest 143, Section 3, Question 1
When industries rapidly apply new technology, people who(50 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(5 more words not shown)
- Ais less likely(12 more words not shown)
- Bwill affect only(5 more words not shown)
- Ccannot prevent job(5 more words not shown)
- Deventually creates more(4 more words not shown)
- Emust take priority(7 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Refusing the new technology won't save those jobs forever. I understand why employees might resist it. When an industry adopts new technology, people who can master it prosper, but many others lose their jobs. Keeping the old system might look safer for the people who would be displaced.
But what happens to a company that refuses to change? The passage tells us that competitors using the new technology eventually replace it. Then all of that company's employees lose their jobs. Resistance delays a problem without escaping the eventual job losses.
What we’re looking for
We need to finish that thought. I'd predict something like, “Resisting the technology cannot protect jobs in the long run.” That follows from the two paths the passage describes. We don't need to decide that every technological change is good or that every displaced worker will find a better job.
Working the answers
- A
This makes resistance sound like a source of job security. But the passage says the resisting firms eventually lose out to their competitors, costing all their employees their jobs. That does not support the claim that resistance is more likely to protect workers than displace them.
- B
Why would the effects stop at workers with technical skills? If the company disappears, all its employees lose their jobs, including people whose work is not technical. Imagine an employee doing a routine task that a machine can replace. Lacking technical skills wouldn't protect that person from the change.
- CCorrect
Resistance cannot prevent job loss in the long run. Adopting the technology displaces many workers; refusing it eventually costs every employee of the resisting firm a job. The conclusion stays focused on what resistance fails to accomplish.
- D
We aren't given a count of jobs created and destroyed. More importantly, this answer concerns resisting new technology. Even if someone believes technological progress can create jobs overall, that would not establish that resistance creates more jobs than it destroys.
- E
Nothing compares resisting technology with promoting new industries or ranks those goals. The evidence instead undermines resistance as a way to preserve jobs. It gives us no basis for making resistance the priority.
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