x97agarwal wrote:
Top college graduates are having more difficulty demonstrating their superiority to prospective employers than did the top students of twenty years ago when an honors degree was distinction enough. Today’s employers are less impressed with the honors degree. Twenty years ago no more than 10 percent of a given class graduated with honors. Today, however, because of grade inflation, the honors degree goes to more than 50 percent of a graduating class. Therefore, to restore confidence in the degrees they award, colleges must take steps to control grade inflation.
Which one of the following is an assumption that, if true, would support the conclusion in the passage?
(A) Today’s students are not higher achievers than the students of twenty years ago.
(B) Awarding too many honors degrees causes colleges to inflate grades.
(C) Today’s employers rely on honors ranking in making their hiring decisions.
(D) It is not easy for students with low grades to obtain jobs.
(E) Colleges must make employers aware of the criteria used to determine who receives an honors degree
A may be the official answer, but I disagree. E is better.
Argument structure:
C: "to restore confidence in the degrees they award, colleges must take steps to control grade inflation"
P: "Today’s employers are less impressed with the honors degree"
P: the % graduating with honors is higher today than it was in the past
First of all, the entire argument is about the only method of restoring confidence. That students are having a hard time is ancillary to the conclusion. It might tell us why we want to restore confidence, but this does not factor into the truth of the statement in the conclusion, that if you want to restore confidence in honors degrees, you must control grade inflation. Negating the reason for wanting to restore confidence doesn't change whether controlling grade inflation is the only way. Specifically, even if students are higher achievers today, controlling grade inflation still may be the only way to restore confidence. This may hurt students who deserve the honor, but we are not philanthropists when we are answering these questions - we are only worried about the effect on the argument, which means the effect on the conclusion.
Furthermore, ignoring the point above, answer A isn't even relevant to the first sentence. The argument discusses graduates having difficulty "demonstrating their superiority" to employers. This is ambiguous as superiority needs context. Is it in relation to those who have graduated 20 years ago, those who are currently graduating, or those who are currently employed? If it is in relation to those who have graduated 20 years ago, then A may have some connection to the argument, because lowering grades would negate the ability for some of the current graduates to demonstrate their superiority over those who graduated 20 years ago. However, in my opinion, the most likely meaning is superiority compared to other current job applicants. This seems to be the smallest assumption required to understand the argument and its relation to A, as there are probably very few graduates from 20 years ago looking for jobs now and there are probably positions open that need to be filled (unlikely that a company is considering replacing a current employee if a recent graduate looks superior). Even if students are achieving higher than students in the past, it is irrelevant because we are concerned about the ability of "top" students to demonstrate superiority to those who are currently graduating. Thus, the conclusion that "colleges must take steps to control grade inflation" as the only means of "restoring confidence" is not even weakened by the negation of A.
How does E matter? It doesn't, but it is the closest to an assumption. Employers do not need to know the specific criteria, but they need to know that it has changed. If employers are not aware of the changes in grading policy, how can confidence, which is a subjective feeling of employers, be restored? And, even assuming that the difficulty demonstrating superiority that is experienced by top graduates is relevant, controlling grade inflation cannot help students if employers still think that 50% of students achieve honor roll designation. There needs to be a change in their minds, and if we take "make employers aware of the criteria used to determine who receives an honors degree" to mean that employers are being notified that honors degrees are harder to acquire, then it is the assumption.
Source?
TL;DR: The argument is about the only way to change the confidence level of employers and about top students demonstrating superiority (likely over other recent graduates). These have nothing to do with A.