PrepTest 148, Section 4, Question 19
Employee: The company I work for has installed(56 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(11 more words not shown)
- ASome people advocate(46 more words not shown)
- BActivists are calling(54 more words not shown)
- CAcme expects that(42 more words not shown)
- DIn many creative(47 more words not shown)
- EIn the movie(47 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A website filter could cause trouble if it blocked something an employee needed for work. Imagine a social-media job where access to a platform is necessary. But that isn't the employee's argument here: the passage describes blocking non-work-related sites, and the employee responds to the claim that distraction prevents the best work.
Windows and decorations can distract people too. Yet nobody claims that stripping both away produces the best working environment. The employee is challenging the company's reason by pointing to other things with the same supposed drawback that we wouldn't eliminate on that basis.
What we’re looking for
For the parallel, look for a restriction justified by a bad feature, followed by another familiar case with that feature where the same restriction would not be accepted. The website topic doesn't matter; that pattern of comparison does.
Working the answers
- A
This objects that a moderate amount can differ from person to person. To match the employee, we would need another thing with the same alleged drawback that people don't want to prohibit. A instead compares how different people respond to the same substance. That is a different challenge to a general rule.
- BCorrect
The device is proposed for a ban because prolonged exposure can cause cancer in laboratory animals. The response points to chemicals that can cause cancer at high doses but that no one would ban wholesale for that reason. The device takes the websites' role; the other chemicals take the windows' and decorations' role. In both arguments, the speaker questions a restrictive response by applying its stated rationale to other things we wouldn't restrict in that way.
- C
This predicts how many workers a company needs to hire to replace retirees and maintain its workforce. It doesn't challenge a prohibition by comparing it with other cases sharing the prohibited thing's feature. The reference to what no one would claim doesn't make the underlying reasoning match.
- D
This distinguishes a requirement from a guarantee: engaging characters may be needed for a sale without ensuring one, since other elements also matter. It doesn't use another accepted item with the same drawback to challenge a restriction. The employee's comparison with windows and decorations has no counterpart here.
- E
This attacks a measure of movie success because of a result the speaker finds counterintuitive: equal ticket sales can yield different rankings when costs differ. It does compare two cases, but it doesn't point to another thing sharing a harmful feature that people would refuse to ban. The type of objection, not merely the presence of a comparison, needs to match.
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