A reason Larson cannot do the assignment is that she has an unavoidabl

EXPLANATION FROM POWER PREP

The argument presents two premises followed by a sentence that contains both a conclusion and another premise:

Premise 1: Larson cannot do the assignment because of an unavoidable scheduling conflict.

Premise 2: Franks cannot do the assignment because he is not assertive enough for the task.

Premise 3: Parker is the only supervisor in the shipping department other than Larson and Franks.

Conclusion: Parker must be assigned to the task.

When considering an argument, you should always be on the lookout for new terms that appear in only one premise or only in the conclusion. In this stimulus, the phrase “supervisor in the shipping department” appears in the last sentence. The use of this phrase is significant since it limits the group under discussion and indicates that the author is only considering shipping department supervisors for the position. This detail, of course, is reflected in the correct answer choice.

From another angle, the argument concludes that it is necessary to assign Parker to the task (the use of the term “must” indicates that the author believes that Parker is the only solution). Generally, such conclusions are vulnerable to attack by offering alternate solutions, and you should proceed to the question after making that analysis. If this were a Weaken question, you would look for answer that indicated that someone other than Parker could be assigned to the task. However, this is an Assumption question, so you should look for a choice that helps establish that alternate solutions do not exist, and that indeed Parker must be assigned to the task.

Answer choice (A): This answer choice tests to see whether you will assume that a mere possibility is an absolute certainty. The premise about Larson states that “a” reason Larson cannot be assigned to the task is the unavoidable scheduling conflict, and the use of “a” leaves open the possibility that other reasons also establish that Larson cannot do the assignment (the use of “the” would have been limiting, but the use of “a” is not). So, it is possible that there were other reasons that Larson could not do the assignment, but it is also possible there were no other reasons. Consequently, although Larson may have the assertiveness the task requires, the author has not assumed that she does, and this answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. This answer addresses the use of the phrase supervisor in the shipping department in the stimulus, and reflects the assumption made by the author that only supervisors from the shipping department can be assigned to the task. Remember, the author stated that there were only three supervisors in the shipping department, and since two of the supervisors could not be assigned to the task that therefore the third supervisor must be assigned to the task. This is a logical conclusion only if the author believes that a shipping department supervisor must be the person assigned to the task.

To double-check the validity of this answer choice, use the Assumption Negation Technique. Using the Technique, the negated answer becomes, “The task can be assigned to someone other than a supervisor in the shipping department.” If the task can be assigned to non-supervisors, or to people who are not in the shipping department, the conclusion in the argument is severely weakened. Because the negated answer would clearly undermine the conclusion, this answer is confirmed as correct.

Answer choice (C): Although we know that Franks cannot be used for the task because he lacks assertiveness, we do not know that if he had the required assertiveness that he would be assigned the task. Similar to the reasoning used to discount answer choice (A), the premise about Franks states that “a” reason Franks cannot be assigned to the task is that he is not quite assertive enough. Thus, it is possible that there were other reasons that Franks could not do the assignment. Consequently, even if Franks had the assertiveness the task requires, the author has not assumed that he would be used for the task.

Answer choice (D): This choice is too broad because it addresses “any” conflict. The reason Larson could not do the assignment was that she had an unavoidable scheduling conflict, and so the author has not assumed that any scheduling conflict is problematic, just an unavoidable one (for example, perhaps Parker has a scheduling conflict, but it can be resolved prior to the start of the task). Since the author has not assumed that all scheduling conflicts preclude the assignment of the task, this answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (E): This answer choice contains the following conditional relationship:

Assertive enough --> Supervisor in shipping department

Has the author assumed that everyone who is assertive enough for the task is a supervisor in the shipping department? No, because the author has limited the candidates to the shipping department there could be other people who are assertive enough for the task, but they would not be qualified since they are not supervisors in the shipping department.