PrepTest 157, Section 2, Question 15
The introduction of mass production techniques in modern(61 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(5 more words not shown)
- Ahighly trained workers(14 more words not shown)
- Bthe introduction of(18 more words not shown)
- Ceven the highest(13 more words not shown)
- Da source of(14 more words not shown)
- Ethe percentage of(14 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Cheaper goods help workers—provided they still have money to buy them.
Mass production lowers prices, letting workers afford goods that were previously out of reach. That's a real benefit in the passage. But the process also relies on fewer workers, many with little training, and those less-trained workers' jobs are especially vulnerable to elimination. So my immediate concern is for the people whose jobs become easier to cut. A lower price doesn't remove that risk.
What we’re looking for
We're completing the argument after “but,” so the ending should capture this complication rather than simply celebrate the cheaper goods. Keep both sides in view: workers can buy more with their money, while the production techniques create a concern about their job security. We aren't given enough to decide the overall balance of gains and losses for every worker.
Working the answers
- A
More training doesn't establish greater purchasing power. The passage compares the vulnerability of jobs held by more- and less-trained workers, not their wages or what each group can afford. It says lower prices let workers buy more, but it doesn't rank the two groups' purchasing power.
- B
This turns a mixed picture into a claim that workers' benefits decreased while owners' profits increased. We have a benefit for workers—lower prices—and a risk to their jobs. We haven't established the overall change in workers' benefits, and lower production costs don't by themselves tell us what happened to owners' profits after prices fell.
- C
Pay and training aren't interchangeable. The passage discusses how training relates to job vulnerability, not whether the highest-paid employees can ever be secure. “Never” also reaches far beyond the comparative risk we're given.
- DCorrect
The source of increased purchasing power is mass production: it lowers prices and makes more goods affordable. The same development also undermines job security through its reduced staffing needs and reliance on jobs vulnerable to elimination. This captures the benefit and the drawback without insisting that one outweighs the other.
- E
We aren't told that the percentage of workers able to afford these goods is shrinking. Lower prices could bring goods within reach of more workers even while some face job losses. Without information about the sizes of those groups or how they change over time, we can't make this numerical claim.
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