PrepTest 147, Section 4, Question 12
West: Of our company's three quality control inspectors,(39 more words not shown)
Young responds to West's argument(1 more words not shown)
- Acontending that the(8 more words not shown)
- Bquestioning the relevance(3 more words not shown)
- Cdisputing the accuracy(7 more words not shown)
- Darguing for a(6 more words not shown)
- Edenying one of(3 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What if Haynes inspects almost everything? If he checks 99 percent of the appliances, it would hardly be surprising for many returned appliances to have passed through his hands. In fact, being responsible for half the defective returns would look very different against that workload than it would if he inspected only a small share of the company's appliances.
What we’re looking for
That is Young's objection. West counts Haynes's share of the returned appliances without accounting for his share of all the appliances inspected. Young supplies that missing context: Haynes handles significantly more than half the total. Both speakers can be right about their numbers while West's judgment is still unsupported. We need the answer that describes Young challenging an unstated part of West's reasoning.
Working the answers
- A
West doesn't assume that Haynes is the worst and then use that same claim to prove he is the worst. West offers a separate fact about returned appliances. The problem is how West interprets that fact without considering workload, not that the conclusion is simply repeated as evidence.
- B
Young doesn't ask why anyone should care which inspector is worst. Young challenges whether West has shown that Haynes deserves that label. Questioning a conclusion's relevance is different from questioning the reasoning offered for it.
- C
Young never denies that half the defective returns were inspected by Haynes. He adds that Haynes also inspects more than half of all the appliances. Those facts can both be true. Adding information that changes what a fact means is not the same as saying the fact is false.
- D
Young doesn't argue that Haynes is somewhat bad instead of the worst, or propose a different ranking. He challenges West's basis for ranking Haynes at all. Nor do we need to conclude that Haynes is the best to see the problem with West's argument.
- ECorrect
West treats Haynes's large share of the returned appliances as evidence of poor performance, as though the size of his workload didn't explain that share. Young denies that unstated basis for the comparison by pointing out how much more Haynes inspects. The relevant comparison is between the defective appliances an inspector misses and the workload he handles, not just between each inspector's raw share of the returns.
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