In response to a high unemployment rate and to complaints

Hi ankur1901,

IMO, the Labor Department try to reduce unemployment rate by offering training programs to laboratory and medical technicians, but not try to eliminate unemployment rate.
Therefore, B does not necessarily undermine the plans of the Labor Department.

In that case how is D correct? really confused with this question.

D is correct.
It says that to be employed by employers in technical field they always need prior experience which the unemployed people would never have even after they have undergone training successfully.

So these ppl will never be hired. Hence the plan would not work.



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A) Many universities and technical colleges offer nine- and twelve-month programs to train students in the same fields.--- Incorrect because the duration does not matter. What if the same course can be taught in 6 months with longer hours. So this does not really tell us why the plan will not be successful.
B) Laboratory and medical technician jobs are not the only jobs for which companies are struggling to find qualified employees.--- Incorrect, we know that the labor department is just planning to address these problems. Addressing problems could just mean to reduce the problems a bit and the plan will surely do that.
C) Similar programs in neighboring countries have had mixed results.--- Out of scope, it does not matter what is happening in neighboring countries.
D) Successful graduates of technical training programs nearly always have scientific job experience prior to enrolling in such programs.--- CORRECT, the passage states unemployed citizens, but the successful graduate have prior scientific job experience so none of the unemployed citizens will be successful which will not make this program successful.
E) The proposed program is significantly more expensive than several alternatives proposed by members of the legislative body.--- Cost of the program also is out of scope. Cost is nowhere mentioned in the passage as a deterrent for people to join the program.

In response to a high unemployment rate and to complaints from businesses that prospective employees are under-qualified for the available jobs, particularly in the sciences, the Labor Department has released its plan to address both problems. It will offer six-month training programs, free of charge to unemployed citizens, to prepare citizens for jobs as laboratory and medical technicians. Each citizen will have the opportunity to participate in one program free of charge, and the Labor Department will offer salary subsidies to firms that hire graduates of these programs.

Which of the following, if true, would constitute reason to believe that the labor department’s plan will not achieve its aims?

A. Many universities and technical colleges offer nine- and twelve-month programs to train students in the same fields.

B. Laboratory and medical technician jobs are not the only jobs for which companies are struggling to find qualified employees.

C. Similar programs in neighboring countries have had mixed results.

D. Successful graduates of technical training programs nearly always have scientific job experience prior to enrolling in such programs.

E. The proposed program is significantly more expensive than several alternatives proposed by members of the legislative body.

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HI,

In my opinion, people with technical experience will not come or join the technical programs that are for offer.If people are already qualified and if the training provides them with the same knowledge the training will not help them..
so 'd' weakens.

Having prior experience doesnt mean the plan will fail. Also nowhere is it mentioned that prior experience is required for the course. It just happens to be. Then how come D?

D can be a weakness for different reasons. Mine was that unemployed people would enrol in these programs, because they would have more chances of getting hired after they finish. However, companies would still be dissatisfied, because the graduates did not improve their skills. So, the progams, in esense, will not provide new skills and the problem of company disatisfaction would remain.

This reasoning was actually why, instead of D, I chose C. Because, if the results are mixed when similar programs were applied to neighboring countries it is quite possible that this pattern will be seen in this case as well. Mixed results means that you cannot trust the effect of the program. So, when there are possitive results, this most probably happens randomly. In this case, perhaps an already qualified person enrolled in the program just to incease his chances of employment, as there is an incentive given to companies to hire him. So, perhaps the programs seemingly have results, because already capable people enrolled, only to increase their chances of getting employed.

So, to sum up, I feel that the question could be improved...

I chose B over D because I thought "to address" implied "to fix" instead of "to lessen" a problem.

Also, for answer choice D, it states that graduates nearly always have scientific job experience. Isn't it possible the unemployed workers have scientific job experience but are still under-qualified for available jobs? Perhaps they have scientific experience but are under-qualified for jobs as laboratory and medical technicians, hence needing the six-month training programs...

Answer choice D equated under-qualified to lacking scientific job experience. I was hesitant to make that assumption... :/

hard one.
in D, training program is useless because the participant already have experience, so the training program will not imporve rate of employment. if the training program focus on persons without prior experience, the training program will improve the employment rate.

how is it D i am thoroughly confused!
If people have work ex and still are unemployed they still constitute a segment of the unemployed! after receiving the training
they get employed and the unemployment rate is still reduced right?
How can we make the assumption that just because these people have work ex not receiving the training will still make them employable?
experts please shed some light!chetan2u

Unlike assumption questions, strengthening and weakening questions do not need to satisfy "must be true" kind of reasoning. Option D gives a reason ( constitute reason) "to believe". IF people from science background who have work experience are not currently unemployed, then the plan would probably be unsuccessful. Since nothing has been stated about those people, the argument gives a reason to beleive that the plan would be successful. (Nonetheless the plan COULD be successful, as you mentioned, IF people from science background who have work experience are currently unemployed)

From V Prep CAT exam

Problem 26 Incorrect-icon
In response to a high unemployment rate and to complaints from businesses that prospective employees are under-qualified for the available jobs, particularly in the sciences, the Labor Department has released its plan to address both problems. It will offer six-month training programs, free of charge to unemployed citizens, to prepare citizens for jobs as laboratory and medical technicians. Each citizen will have the opportunity to participate in one program free of charge, and the Labor Department will offer salary subsidies to firms that hire graduates of these programs.

Which of the following, if true, would constitute reason to believe that the labor department’s plan will not achieve its aims?

Many universities and technical colleges offer nine- and twelve-month programs to train students in the same fields.
Laboratory and medical technician jobs are not the only jobs for which companies are struggling to find qualified employees.
Similar programs in neighboring countries have had mixed results.
Successful graduates of technical training programs nearly always have scientific job experience prior to enrolling in such programs.
The proposed program is significantly more expensive than several alternatives proposed by members of the legislative body.

I chose answer B on the basis that "prospective employees are under-qualified for the available jobs".... b states that the universities and colleges offer 9-12 mth courses ... by implication these courses arent providing employees which are qualified. Therefore if you bring in 6 mth courses, it will not suceed as by implication if 9-12 mth courses are leaving graduates under qualified ... a 6 mth course will not suffice

... open to suggestions where i went wrong - thank you!

D is better option.
The whole problem pertains to the word "prospective employees" meaning future employees whom they want are under employed.
so leg. decided to give some training to them for 6 months. Here, what they observed from option D is that Most people in training program are not prospective employees but already had employed or have experience. So it won't decrease unemployment.

I chose D without doubt, interpreted this Question differently from the replies above.

The argument concludes that the plan will be successful because it will address BOTH problems.
So, the assumptions here are,
1) 'the technical training program will be sufficient to address the gap in scientific knowledge for the unemployed citizens', the citizens are not technically sound.
2) scientific knowledge is the only knowledge required to make the citizens qualified for the jobs.

So, a weaken answer attacks the assumption and harms the conclusion. The evidence here is, the graduates are already well qualified from their technical training from school..meaning, this attacks the argument's assumption that they need training program from labor dept to make them qualified. The labor's plan is redundant and that will not solve the problem!

We can go further in saying the technical program is not the need of the hour but maybe the people lacked in soft skills or related.

Hope this helps

Apart from all the reasons stated by other users above, One observation to really ponder

The High Unemployment rate and the apparently High number of Underqualified Prospective Employees (As understood from the complaints by the employers).
Would "High" be substantial to say that there aren't enough people employed or among all people, less than 50% are employed? You may ask.
From the high number of complaints, the unemployment rate, and the government's action to address these issues, you should be able to comprehend that most people in the country are either unemployed or underqualified.

What makes Option D a great indicator that the Plan may fail is the fact that it mentions -

"Successful Graduate nearly always have prior work experience in these fields". Which describes an individual who can go and apply for such jobs at companies. But, from the context, many trainees are either unemployed or underqualified at the time they join these programmes. But Successful Graduates nearly always have prior experience!

What does this mean? Nearly all people who were no fit for jobs, would clearly not Graduate from this programme either!

WEAKENER!

Whereas, for Option B- A Trap for most!

The information given in B isn't clear enough for us to say for sure that Technician Jobs weren't the majority of the jobs at issue! Were there or were there not other variety of Jobs that cause the crisis that the Labour Department should be looking to fix (Through it's Training Programmes)? We Don't Know, because it is NOT CLEAR.