#5 - Barnes: The two newest employees at this company have

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption. The correct answer choice is (C)

The stimulus to this problem contains a Shell Game, and you must read closely in order to identify it: in the first sentence the author equates “new employees” with “inexperienced workers.” Of course, a new employee is not necessarily inexperienced (the employee could have transferred from another company, etc.). The assumption that new employees are inexperienced is reflected in the correct answer, (C).

Answer choice (A): The author notes that the duties of the two new employees are too complex for them, but the author does not compare or imply a comparison to the tasks of other workers.

Answer choice (B): The author makes no assumption as to why the two new employees are being paid the salary they receive, only that their salary should be reduced. For example, the reason the employees are paid more could be that they are related to the owner of the company.

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice, a Supporter.

Answer choice (D): This answer is an immediate Loser. No discussion or assumption is made about Barnes’ salary.

Answer choice (E): This answer would hurt the argument, and therefore it can never be an assumption of the argument.

[MikeJones]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption. The correct answer choice is (C)

The stimulus to this problem contains a Shell Game, and you must read closely in order to identify it: in the first sentence the author equates “new employees” with “inexperienced workers.” Of course, a new employee is not necessarily inexperienced (the employee could have transferred from another company, etc.). The assumption that new employees are inexperienced is reflected in the correct answer, (C).

Answer choice (A): The author notes that the duties of the two new employees are too complex for them, but the author does not compare or imply a comparison to the tasks of other workers.

Answer choice (B): The author makes no assumption as to why the two new employees are being paid the salary they receive, only that their salary should be reduced. For example, the reason the employees are paid more could be that they are related to the owner of the company.

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice, a Supporter.

Answer choice (D): This answer is an immediate Loser. No discussion or assumption is made about Barnes’ salary.

Answer choice (E): This answer would hurt the argument, and therefore it can never be an assumption of the argument.

Hi. I have a question about A, because it seems like there are two ways of interpreting it. It seems like you can take this to mean comparing duties to other duties alone, or duties to the duties of other workers.

I took it to mean the first one, so I thought it meant that their duties are less complex than any of the other duties in the company. If this were the case, wouldn't it be impossible to reduce their complexity?

Luckily, I understood the major assumption and still selected the correct answer, but A seems like it also hurts the argument, or at the very least a premise. Am I wrong?

[James Finch]

Hi Mike,

With an Assumption question, the correct answer choice will always be an unstated premise that is required to either logically join together the other premises to the conclusion (Supporter) or to block off an avenue of attack on the conclusion (Defender). You correctly identified the missing link (experience) that was needed to get from premises to conclusion, represented by answer choice (C). We can test this validity with the Assumption Negation technique:

The new employees are experienced Their salaries and duties should not be reduced

And we see it works. Now if we do the same with (A):

The new employees' duties are less complex than any others in the company Their salaries and duties should not be reduced

Aside from the scope being off (it becomes impossible to reduce their duties without firing them) we are faced with the conundrum of their salaries, which are still posited to be too high, but now should not be reduced despite their having the least amount of duties in the company. So (A) doesn't work.

Hope this clears things up!

[MikeJones]

Hi Mike,

With an Assumption question, the correct answer choice will always be an unstated premise that is required to either logically join together the other premises to the conclusion (Supporter) or to block off an avenue of attack on the conclusion (Defender). You correctly identified the missing link (experience) that was needed to get from premises to conclusion, represented by answer choice (C). We can test this validity with the Assumption Negation technique:

The new employees are experienced Their salaries and duties should not be reduced

And we see it works. Now if we do the same with (A):

The new employees' duties are less complex than any others in the company Their salaries and duties should not be reduced

Aside from the scope being off (it becomes impossible to reduce their duties without firing them) we are faced with the conundrum of their salaries, which are still posited to be too high, but now should not be reduced despite their having the least amount of duties in the company. So (A) doesn't work.

Hope this clears things up!

Do you all get royalties for saying Assumption Negation technique? I see it on almost every question

That clears it up. Even if their duties are less complex than any of the others, they could still be too complex for the workers in question and their high salaries could still be an issue.

Correct answer C is stronger because makes the premise entirely irrelevant, while A just makes it weaker.

[blade21cn]

I'm really confused by the argument. The premise actually contains two pieces of information: on one hand, the two newest employees are paid too high for the "simple tasks normally assigned to new employees"; and on the other, their "duties are too complex for inexperienced workers." I thought "tasks" and "duties" are of the same concept. How can they be both "simple" and "complex" at the same time? Thanks!

[KelseyWoods]

Hi blade21cn!

Barnes says that the two newest employees have salaries that are too high for the simple tasks normally assigned to new employees. He doesn't say that these newest employees have simple tasks. Just that typically, new employees have simple tasks and lower salaries reflective of those simple tasks. These two newest employees, however, have complex duties. That's why Barnes wants both their salaries and complexity of duties to be reduced. He wants them to have the simple tasks normally assigned to new employees and salaries that are commensurate with those simpler tasks, rather than the complex duties and higher salaries that they currently have.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[SeoYoung]

Hi, I have a question about answer choices tend B and C.
I chose B as a correct answer, since I think high salaries that two new employees received and duties that are too complex for them have certain relationship as explained in B. I understood that since B is not described in stimulus ; about the relationship of salaries and duties, it just says two of them both should be reduced. But, since this is Assumption question, how can I figure out with the only information that this is not described in the stimulus so we cannot be certain about it?
When we assume that without that answer choice, conclusion in the stimulus can be driven, is it can not be the answer? (In this question, example is like that : two employees can “just” receive higher salaries or they are both the son of the founder of the company (haha) . I want some explanation about this.
Further, I saw in other source (not Powerscore), about answer choices (c),
When we negate that, “the two new employees are experienced” , we can not get the conclusion since if it is that, their salaries have not to be reduced. Since there is no relationship between salaries and duties, can we explain this answer choice like that? I really wonder.
Thank. U. Help me with some advice!

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Seo,

This is an Assumption question, what some people call a necessary assumption question. Here, we are looking for an unstated premise that is necessary for the argument. In other words, we are looking for something that the person making the argument (Barnes) is thinking even though it wasn't stated outright.

Before reading the answers, it is important to try to prephrase the answer. What is Barnes assuming about these two newest employees?

Here, the unstated premise/assumption is that these two newest employees are inexperienced. If we were to ask Barnes, "are these two newest employees are inexperienced?," Barnes would respond "Yes, of course." We know this because otherwise Barne's argument makes no sense.

Using the Assumption Negation Technique on Answer C, if "the two newest employees are experienced," then Barnes's argument falls apart because there would no longer be any reason provided whatsoever for why their salaries and duties should be reduced.

As for Answer B, while it may seem reasonable that the reason that the two newest employees are being paid more than average for newly hired employees is due to the complexity of the duties, this is not necessary for the argument. All the argument requires is that that duties are more complex and that the salaries are higher than is typical for inexperienced workers, and that these workers are in fact inexperienced.

The higher pay may be due to the specific position in the company rather than the complexity of the duties. For example, perhaps these two newest employees were hired to be vice presidents of the company and their higher salary is a reflection of their management role rather than the complexity of the duties themselves. While you may assume that higher level positions automatically mean increased complexity of duties, there isn't necessarily a direct correlation.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Antonina,

First, if you haven't already done so, I'd recommend reading the earlier forum posts for this question, especially the Complete Question Explanation (Post #1).

What you are looking for in the correct answer is an assumption (i.e. an unstated premise) that the author (Barnes) is making in his argument. In other words, you are looking for the answer that is absolutely necessary for the argument.

Here, Barnes is assuming that these two newest workers are inexperienced. This is the missing piece of the argument (the unstated premise) and closes the logical gap in the argument, which is what Supporter Assumptions do. The argument would make no sense if this assumption were not true and the workers were in fact experienced.

More information on Assumption Questions, including Supporter and Defender Assumptions and using the Assumption Negation Technique, can be found in "The Logical Reasoning Bible" or in any of PowerScore's LSAT courses.