PrepTest 146, Section 3, Question 20
The company president says that significant procedural changes(56 more words not shown)
The argument's conclusion can be(10 more words not shown)
- AYeung is a(6 more words not shown)
- BNeither Grimes nor(12 more words not shown)
- CNo lawyer in(15 more words not shown)
- DIf the company's(17 more words not shown)
- EIf no lawyer(20 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What if they told a different lawyer? The president says neither she nor Yeung heard about the changes before they happened. But the contract allows advance notice to the president or any lawyer in the company's legal department. We haven't been told that Yeung is the only lawyer available.
Imagine that another lawyer in that department received notice on Monday and the procedure changed on Tuesday. The president and Yeung could both learn about it on Wednesday. Their lack of advance notice would still be true, yet the notice requirement would have been met.
What we’re looking for
To prove a violation, we have to close that other route. Saying that Yeung is the department's only lawyer would do it: neither possible recipient was told in advance. Let's look for an assumption that rules out notice to another qualifying lawyer.
Working the answers
- A
Being a lawyer isn't the same as being the only lawyer. Even if Yeung belongs to the legal department, someone else there could have received advance notice. A identifies one possible recipient without ruling out the others.
- B
We already know Yeung wasn't told in advance; B adds that Grimes wasn't either. But Grimes isn't identified as the only other lawyer, or even as a lawyer. Another member of the legal department could still have been notified. Listing another uninformed person doesn't establish that nobody eligible was told.
- CCorrect
This closes the route directly. According to the president, she wasn't told before the changes. C says no lawyer in the legal department was told before them either. Neither way of satisfying the notice requirement was used, so the contract was violated if the president and Grimes described the facts and rule correctly.
I expected an answer making Yeung the only lawyer. C reaches the same result without telling us how many lawyers there are. There could be one or a hundred; C tells us none received the required notice.
- D
This tells us what would follow if the president received advance notice. Her account says she did not. We therefore cannot use D to establish anything about this case. It also doesn't tell us whether another lawyer was notified.
- E
This offers a rule for a situation in which no department lawyer received advance notice. We still need to establish that situation. Perhaps another lawyer was told, so E's condition never occurred. C supplies the missing fact; E supplies a rule whose condition we cannot yet satisfy.
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