Hi AnishPassi DmitryFarber zhanbo MartyTargetTestPrep -

Regarding option (A) - is option (A) only referring to
(I) 1 year (1980 only)
or
(ii) the entire decade (i.e. from 1980 inclusive to 1990 exclusive)

On the first read, i thought (I)

But i think (A) should be read as referring to (ii).

If (i) -- then I dont think (A) really weakens

Reason : If a growing percentage of college graduates, unable to find jobs requiring a college degree, took unskilled jobs ONLY DURING 1 YEAR (1980 only)

Then I dont see how whatever happens in the year of 1980 ONLY, has any bearing on anything that is happening in the year 1990

"During the 1980s" means "during the 10-year time period from 1980 to 1989."
_________________

Thanks MartyTargetTestPrep -

If you look at (option D) -- the phrase "From 1980 to 1990..." was used. In (D) - its clear, the 10 year decade is clearly being discussed.

I am struggling to see how are you SO SURE that "During the 1980s" is referring to the 10 years rather than just 1 year (1980)

If I want to refer to 1 year only (1980 only) -- what would the phrase "From the 1980's.." be instead ?

^^^MartyTargetTestPrep - i think i figured it out

1980s is referring to the entire decade
1980's is a possessive noun, referring the noun "1980" only

In this case, option (A) does not have a possessive noun.

Option (A) is instead 1980s (not 1980's)

What you're saying is a little too simple.

What occurred in 1980 could have a bearing on what occurred in 1990.

So, you have to carefully consider all of what's said in the passage and answer choices and make sure you understand it well rather than focus on specific parts of choices without fully understanding the roles they play.
_________________

Just be careful.

Sometimes, people spell "1980s" "1980's."
_________________

Dear experts,

I have a question in the correct option (A)

The difference in average annual income in favor of employees who have college degrees, compared with those who do not have such degrees, doubled between 1980 and 1990. Some analysts have hypothesized that increased competition between employers for employees with college degrees drove up income for such employees.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the explanation described above?


(A) During the 1980s a growing percentage of college graduates, unable to find jobs requiring a college degree, took unskilled jobs.
(B) The average age of all employees increased slightly during the 1980s.
(C) The unemployment rate changed very little throughout the 1980s.
(D) From 1980 to 1990 the difference in average income between employees with advanced degrees and those with bachelor???s degrees also increased.
(E) During the 1980s there were some employees with no college degree who earned incomes comparable to the top incomes earned by employees with a college degree.


the conclusion of the passage is : increased competition between employers for employees with college degrees drove up income for such employees.

(A) does weaken the conclusion because (A) A provides that there are many colleges grads or at least the number of colleges grad are growing up. But doesn't it conflict with the premise : The difference in average annual income in favor of employees who have college degrees, compared with those who do not have such degrees, doubled between 1980 and 1990. ?

If the growing number of grads took the unskilled job, we can expect that the average salary will go down. Thus, the average salary between college grads and non-grad shouldn't be doubled. Why is (A) correct?

First, you're correct that we should take the premise of the question as true. In other words, the difference between the income of employees with and without college degrees really did double between 1980 and 1990.

Now, you raise an interesting question: if a growing percentage of college graduates couldn't find jobs that required college degrees, would that mean their incomes went down? Unfortunately, the question doesn't provide enough information to answer this question. They definitely could go down. On the other hand, if some unskilled jobs paid more than jobs that required college degrees, incomes of college graduates could certainly go up. Either way, with the information we're given, we really can't say.

Luckily, however, we don't need to answer that question. We know the premise has to be true, so the only question we need to answer is how does (A) affect the conclusion. And keep in mind that we won't need any outside knowledge to answer the question. Everything we need has to be contained in the question itself.

So how does (A) affect the argument? Well, as we've established, we can't really say how it affects overall income among college graduates (though again, that isn't really relevant). But it definitely suggests that competition for employees with college degrees wasn't increasing during the 1980's. And for that reason, (A) undermines the argument.

I hope that helps!
_________________

The difference in average annual income in favor of employees who have college degrees, compared with those who do not have such degrees, doubled between 1980 and 1990. Some analysts have hypothesized that increased competition between employers for employees with college degrees drove up income for such employees.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the explanation described above?


(A) During the 1980s a growing percentage of college graduates, unable to find jobs requiring a college degree, took unskilled jobs.
(B) The average age of all employees increased slightly during the 1980s.
(C) The unemployment rate changed very little throughout the 1980s.
(D) From 1980 to 1990 the difference in average income between employees with advanced degrees and those with bachelor’s degrees also increased.
(E) During the 1980s there were some employees with no college degree who earned incomes comparable to the top incomes earned by employees with a college degree.

Got it incorrect but now I understand the explanation. The gist of the passage is the increased competition among the employers is the reason why employees with CD were being paid more and the wage gap came to existence. To weaken this relationship there are many way but we focus on the impact of each option in this relationship and how it can weaken it.

A) During the 1980s meaning in that decade between 1980 and 1990 CG were unable to find jobs so they took unskilled jobs. I initially took this option as meaning that if CG are moving to the unskilled jobs with lower wages then the gap of wages between employees with CG and non-CG should be reduced on average as we have just added CG to the pool of lower wage jobs. I still do not understand why this explanation is wrong but the alternative explanation is that CG moving to unskilled less paying jobs means there wasn't a short supply of CG. There were more CG than the number of lucrative jobs, hence no need for competition by the employers, thus, weakening the relationship.

B) Average age of employees has no effect on this relationship
C) If the unemployment rate changed very little then that would make it tougher to explain the wage gap increasing thus giving more credibility to the relationship given by author instead
D) People with degrees and categories within them has no bearing on the relationship itself as we are concerned about all CG
E) I chose E as I missed the significance of the word "some". However, some could mean just one as well. Without some this would be a perfect option (if it were most) and if instead of during 1980s it was beginning of 1980s. This is because, if in the beginning there was a huge overlap of employees in high paying jobs who had CD and no CD, then that would explain the absence of average wage gap. This would imply that it is the distribution of overlapping that caused the increasing wage gap as later in 1980s, the overlap reduced and caused the gap. However, now I realise this is a leap I can't take as I have no information to back it up from passage or the option.

OG 2017 New Question

[/quote]