manjot123 wrote:
GMATNinja sir if we negate option c will it not weaken the conclusion?
I'd suggest that a better way of approaching choice (C) is to ask yourself, "Is negation really necessary for me to evaluate this choice?"
While negation can be a helpful tool, it can sometimes be very risky to use, because a lot of answer choices to assumption questions don't give us very clear places to negate the statement. Choice (C) is a great example of this:
Quote:
No study has ever found that a business has decreased the number of its minimum-wage employees after an increase in the minimum wage.
What could a negation of this statement look like?
At least one study has ever found that a business has decreased the number of its minimum-wage employees after an increase in the minimum wage.
No study has ever found that a business has not decreased the number of its minimum-wage employees after an increase in the minimum wage.
No study has never found that a business has decreased the number of its minimum-wage employees after an increase in the minimum wage.
This quickly becomes a headache. And we don't need the pain, because there's a much simpler reason for us to eliminate Choice (C).
mikemcgarry showed us the way in
his great analysis of the answer choices. Rather than use the negation test, he recognized that choice (C) is just too extreme to accept.
The conclusion is, "Therefore, laissez-faire economics is not entirely accurate."
Does this conclusion
require that
no study has
ever found that a business has decreased the number of its minimum-wage employees after an increase in the minimum wage?
Nope. We're told that fast-food restaurants (in general) kept
roughly the same number of minimum-wage employees as before the increase. It's entirely possible that some fast-food restaurants hired slightly more minimum-wage employees, while others let some minimum-wage employees go. Knowing that at least one business could have decreased the number of its minimum-wage employees doesn't invalidate the conclusion.
Furthermore, the author points to
just one study in the argument. The author draws on that study as a basis for saying that laissez-faire economics is
not entirely accurate. These pieces line up nicely, but choice (C) is an extreme statement that isn't needed for us to connect the dots. Choice (B), on the other hand, connects dots that
must be linked in order for us to accept the conclusion.
The takeaway here is that we need to pick an assumption that
the argument itself is making.
Once you have a hammer, everything starts to look like a thumb.
So keep negation in your tool belt, but don't let that tool take over what you're really trying to do with an assumption question. And if you see a simpler path to eliminating an answer choice, then take that simpler path and move on.
I hope this helps!