#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