PrepTest 147, Section 4, Question 4

What we’re looking for

Working the answers

• A
  Correct

  This rules out the gap we noticed. Spending will significantly decrease or significantly increase. In the first case, the passage says businesses retain more earnings and hire more workers. In the second, the economy is stimulated and unemployment falls. Whichever case occurs, the stated result follows.

• B

  A policy's purpose doesn't guarantee its outcome. Officials could intend to reduce unemployment while spending remained unchanged and their policies failed. We need a fact that starts one of the argument's stated routes, not merely a description of what officials hope to accomplish.

• C

  This tells us what would happen if demand for workers rose significantly. But it doesn't establish that the demand will rise. The passage already connects the proposed spending changes with more employment; the missing information is whether a qualifying spending change will happen. C leaves us waiting for its own condition to be met.

• D

  A long-run slowdown doesn't establish what happens to unemployment in the short term. Even if the economy later slows, the argument's near-term prediction could still be right. D also doesn't tell us that spending will significantly increase next year. It supplies neither the missing event nor the required short-term conclusion.

• E

  This describes a situation in which unemployment would not decrease. It doesn't establish that the economy will be stimulated or that businesses will retain more earnings. We still lack a reason one of those helpful routes will occur. Another rule about what follows from their absence doesn't prove the decrease the economist predicts.