A rise in the number of young people entering the workforce in a small

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

Answer: B

STEP 1: Read the question and identify your task.
This is a Weaken question. You are looking for a statement that weakens the argument, so you read the argument looking for critical facts or bases that make the argument work.

STEP 2: Read the argument with your task in mind.
The argument bases its conclusion on a trend over six years during which there was a rise in young people entering the workforce at the same time there was a rise in percentage of young people graduating from high school. It uses this basis to state that increasing graduates will increase employment of young people.

STEP 3: Know what you’re looking for.
A weakening argument might show a caveat or alternate interpretation that will alter that logical step. The correct answer will satisfy that caveat or alternate interpretation.

STEP 4: Read every word of every answer choice.
Answer A discusses only completion of years in college, while the argument discusses graduation and dropout rates. Since it is dealing with different terms altogether, it cannot be the right answer. Answer B says there was also a rise in percentage of high school dropouts hired between 2000 and 2006, indicating that the rise in employment benefited all young people, graduates and nongraduates. This weakens the correlation between graduation and employment and thus weakens the reverse correlation between employment and graduation. This would seem to weaken the argument considerably, but let’s continue. Answer C speaks to the jobs and their difficulty, but says nothing about the relationship between graduate or nongraduate status and employment. Also, it is possible that the jobs are too complicated for graduates as well. You would not know because the statement doesn’t say anything about that. Answer D tries to confuse you by using the term “number” versus “percentage,” and even though a larger number of dropouts were hired, there might still be a larger percentage of graduates who were hired, so this cannot be your weakening argument. The argument discusses percentages in its premises, and the weakening statement must do so as well. Answer E may be a common practice, but it has nothing to do with actual results of who was hired or not. The correct choice is answer B.