How does a building contractor most readily prove compliance with the

My two cents' worth:

For assumption questions, it is sometimes helpful to note that there may be more than 1 valid assumption in order for the conclusion to potentially hold true.

Author's conclusion is: "This, unfortunately, means that there will NEVER be any significant technological innovation within the industry."

That's a pretty strong statement to make - what if the authors of the building codes actually change to having new innovative technologies in mind when setting those codes in future? What if somehow, current existing proven technologies no longer prove fit for purpose? What if there are other concerns or potential benefits that outweigh whether contractors would risk inability to prove compliance?

We're basically assuming that such potential scenarios above don't happen. Having thought about this, let's follow closely from the question stem and analyze the choices below:

The argument above depends on the assumption that, in choosing the technologies to use in new construction, building contractors

(A) are always more concerned to avoid difficulties in proving compliance with the relevant codes than to be innovative
- this choice tells us that no matter what, contractors will ALWAYS choose to avoid difficulties in proving compliance --> contractors will then ALWAYS follow the code specifications and use established technology to do so; this means contractors will NEVER choose to be innovative, which would preserve our argument's conclusion. This is a keeper for now.

(B) are always concerned to exceed the official specifications by a wide margin in order to forestall challenges
- the necessary assumption isn't about exceeding the specifications by either a wide or a thin margin; if usage of innovative technologies is still remotely possible despite having a thin or wide margin, then the conclusion will break. Thus, this is not the required assumption we need here.

(C) pay little or no attention to the total construction costs entailed by different technologies
- If we follow the argument closely, the argument does not really talk about costs involved with different kinds of technology. Even if there were a spectrum of possible costs, whether expensive or inexpensive, it doesn't help us answer whether innovative technologies will be used at all and if the conclusion will be even remotely broken, since we're pretty much looking for an ABSOLUTE certainty that no innovative technologies would be used. This is what would potentially be either a could-be-true or even an out-of-scope answer.


(D) consult directly with the authors of the relevant codes in order to avoid using an unproven technology
- Again, consulting or not consulting with the authors directly to avoid using an unproven technology would not help us - definitively - bridge the gap for our argument. We need to know if there is absolutely NO WAY that building contractors would use any innovative technology at all.


(E) are able to foresee any changes the relevant codes may undergo before the completion of a new project
- let's say that building contractors are NOT able to foresee any changes the codes may go through, before the completion of a project. The possibility remains that a contractor may or may not have chosen an innovative technology to start with, or start with a proven technology but switch to an innovative technology halfway through the project when the codes change. We need absolute certainty here that contractors DO NOT use any innovative technology, and this option isn't very reassuring for our conclusion to hold.

Hence, Option A is the best answer. Happy to hear feedback on the analysis and alternative ways to interpret the question.