The most successful economies have been, and will continue to be, thos

I am not convinced behind your reasoning for eliminating Option B.
Passage says :
"The most successful economies have been, and will continue to be, those that train as many people as possible in the human skills required to research, to develop, and to apply new technology. Japan is a model for this sort of training effort."
We can infer that Japan is a successful economy because it is a model for the sort of training mentioned.

Now, the passage points out the limitations even in Japan's economy. Hence, we can infer that Japan is NOT the best standard for successful economy.

hi

apart from strong language, choice B is exaggerated. The issue is not with measuring economic success against any country but with defining successful economies

hope this helps
thanks

cheers through the kudos button if this helps

we can read the stimulus as saying that if you're one of the "most" successful economies, then you are training as many people as possible in these technologies. Since it then says that Europe isn't training enough people, we can say that Europe is not one of the "most" successful economies. So we can infer that to become one of the "most" successful, it would have to train more people.

How can we say this is necessary for Europe to be "more" successful? I agree, we can't really infer this, but this answer stinks way less than the other four:

(A) is totally out, it never compares engineers vs. researchers.

(B) is out because all we know is that Japan is a model for this kind of training, so if anything it is a good comparison.

(C) is incorrect because the stimulus never says whether Japan's economy is actually successful.

(E) is totally out of scope; we have no clue how Europe stacks up to the competition.

So (D) is the best of the bunch.

1. Successful economies are those that train as many people as possible to research, to develop, and to apply new technology.
2. Japan is a model for this sort of training.

Hence this inference - Japan is not the best country against which to measure a country’s economic success - is incorrect. Also note, the passage compares the shortage of technically qualified people and people performing menial tasks. So there is no real comparison between Japan and Europe.

GMATNinja generis VeritasKarishma Harshgmat GMATGuruNY ammuseeru nightblade354

Can you please help me with the understanding of below passage.
I am refraining usage of argument since, in an inference question, there is no argument/ conclusion.


As in the trend continues from past, so in future, the contributors to successful economies will be
the firms who train people

• to research,
• to develop, and
• to apply new technology

For e.g. Japan is one such company following the above protocol.
Let me know if I can infer Japan is a successful economy at this stage.


When one compares Europe with Japan, there are two limitations in Europe:

• there is a shortage of skilled labor trained to use the new technologies,
• there are not enough scientists able to develop and apply the technology

The sentence starts with a contrast. It says: Just as in Europe, Japan too has shortage of technically qualified people
and too many workers qualified to perform only advanced tasks.
I think I can safely infer Japan in the successful economy at this stage, else what is the contrast?


What MUST BE TRUE from the statements above?


Nope, no part of the passage helps me to infer this. I am too much broadening my scope to entire world areas
to infer this. Out


Maybe, maybe not: Japan is the best country to have as a benchmark.


Yes, the passage says: Japan has a huge pool of unskilled labour and I inferred that Japan is a successful economy.
I connected the dots and selected this.


Who are these new people? Do they have to be scientists or engineers? Don't know, out.


Completely opposite. Japan has a successful economy than other European countries. Out.

Hope this helps!!

MentorTutoring

Hi Andrew, I was hoping if you could help me with this question :-

First, I usually struggle the most with Inference based questions, be it in CR or RC. Here is my reasoning for this one

P1 :- The most successful economies have been, and will continue to be, those that train as many people as possible in the human skills required to research, to develop, and to apply new technology.

P2 :- Japan is a model for this sort of training effort (When it says Japan is a model for this training - doesn't it mean that by training people Japan has become successful?

P3 :- Europe as a whole is in a weaker position: there is a shortage of skilled labor trained to use the new technologies, and there are not enough scientists able to develop and apply the technology. - Europe has a shortage of skilled worker and they need to train more people to become more successful

P4 :- Even in Japan there is a shortage of technically qualified people, and, like most European countries, Japan has far too many workers qualified to perform only menial tasks. - Japan has a shortage of skilled worker to train more people but still it has been able to be successful with such shortage - doesn't it translate into "uncommonly narrow base of highly skilled labor"

I can understand D is correct but I think even C is as close as D can get to the correct answer. Kindly help me to understand the ways I can differentiate between the correct and incorrect answers when the answers are that close (Or so I think)

Hello, shameekv1989. I spent more than 2 minutes on this one, since I wanted to be extra careful interpreting the language of the passage and answer choices, but I did go with (D) in the end. P2 - Yes, Japan can become more successful economically by training people, but we do not know that this success has actually happened (more on this in P4); P3 - Yes, and your read fits (D) perfectly; P4 - Almost. I think you are reading into the language too much. To cobble together the first two sentences, the passage states that Japan is a model for this sort of training effort, with an aim to train as many people as possible in the human skills required to research, to develop, and to apply new technology. Because the passage mentions only efforts or goals, the economic success of Japan or any other country depends upon the same factors: training as many people as possible... In other words, Japan seems to be doing a better job, via training its people, than many European economies in positioning itself for economic success, but we cannot deduce that its current workforce consists of an uncommonly narrow base of highly skilled labor. The passage simply does not delve so deep.

To be honest, you could swap out Europe in choice (D) with any other country/continent, even Japan, and still have an accurate statement. Sentence 1 makes it clear that the more people there are who are trained in certain skills, the more successful that economy will be. In layman's terms, the more, the merrier, Japan included.

To get better at inference questions, just treat them as any other type of question. You must find an anchor in the text to back up the answer choice, or it is incorrect. Stick to the surface: take the information at face value. When you start to conjure up what ifs and various interpretations, you should definitely pull back and reexamine the passage. You will likely find that your answer is hiding right in plain sight.

- Andrew

Hi Andrew, MentorTutoring - First of all, thanks for taking out time and for the detailed explanation.

I was thinking about it in a different perspective as well later yesterday.

(C) Japan’s successful economy depends upon an uncommonly narrow base of highly skilled labor.

The statement says "Japan's economy depends upon narrow base of skilled labor" - Can I say that this statement is saying that without "uncommonly narrow base of highly skilled labor" Japan's economy won't be successful? I mean this inference from option C would likely make me eliminate this option. Because then this statement turns need of skilled labor into a necessary condition for Japan's economy to be successful whereas the original argument says to be the most successful economy you need a skilled labor to train others.

What I mean that Japan's economy can still be successful without these skilled labor but may be not the most successful economy.

Is my understanding or inference from option C correct?

Sure thing, shameekv1989. Yes, your assessment of option (C) above is accurate. According to the passage, Japan, like any other country, needs to train people in certain skills to create a more successful economy, plain and simple. It is not a matter of comparison, really. Option (C) sounds alluring, but by pigeonholing the information, if you can manage to unravel it, the answer works against itself. This uncommonly narrow base of highly skilled labor does not come from the passage, but from a reinterpretation of the information that is provided.

- Andrew

The most successful economies have been, and will continue to be, those that train as many people as possible in the human skills required to research, to develop, and to apply new technology. Japan is a model for this sort of training effort. Europe as a whole is in a weaker position: there is a shortage of skilled labor trained to use the new technologies, and there are not enough scientists able to develop and apply the technology. However, even in Japan there is a shortage of technically qualified people, and, like most European countries, Japan has far too many workers qualified to perform only menial tasks.

Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the passage?


(A) There is a greater worldwide shortage of research scientists than there is of engineers.

(B) Japan is not the best country against which to measure a country???s economic success.

(C) Japan???s successful economy depends upon an uncommonly narrow base of highly skilled labor.

(D) To be economically more successful, Europe needs to train more people in the new technologies.

(E) European countries have economies that are more successful than those of most other countries.



By POE, I reached B. Here's my analysis

1. For option D - I am not convinced as to how we can say that there is a causation between getting successful and training more people. All we can infer is that - most successful economies are doing something. We cannot infer that it's those "something" that is making them successful. for ex: the most successful agrarian economies export rice, but that doesn't mean that to become a successful agrarian economy, one needs to export rice.

2. For option C- It says that Japan's successful economy depends on X. We don't know if the success is dependent on X. We can very well assume that there could be other aspects that are contributing to the success. Again no causation can be inferred with certainty.

3. For Option B - It says that Japan is not the best. That we can say for sure because we know Japan is one of the most successful economies and Japan has limitations. Japan could be 2nd best, 3rd best, or anything else but definitely not the "best" as we say in the option

Please let me know if my analysis makes sense. Thank you.

AndrewN - May I request your help? please and thank you.

The most successful economies have been, and will continue to be, those that train as many people as possible in the human skills required to research, to develop, and to apply new technology. Japan is a model for this sort of training effort. Europe as a whole is in a weaker position: there is a shortage of skilled labor trained to use the new technologies, and there are not enough scientists able to develop and apply the technology. However, even in Japan there is a shortage of technically qualified people, and, like most European countries, Japan has far too many workers qualified to perform only menial tasks.

Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the passage?

(A) There is a greater worldwide shortage of research scientists than there is of engineers.

(B) Japan is not the best country against which to measure a country’s economic success. - WORNG. May be true may be not but more importantly it is not going along with the core of the passage flow. Japan is merely an example in the passage and an example can't be the centre point of a passage.

(C) Japan’s successful economy depends upon an uncommonly narrow base of highly skilled labor. - WRONG. Adverbs are red flags and here it is one. Without that the choice looks more enticing for me. Why use an adverb that modifies the choice unnecessarily in direction not relevant to the flow of the passage. More so that Japan is used as an example in the passage.

(D) To be economically more successful, Europe needs to train more people in the new technologies. - CORRECT. Took too long to answer this one but happy that i chose this after getting stuck with B and C also along with this.

(E) European countries have economies that are more successful than those of most other countries. - WRONG. Irrelevant as in there is no such comparison ascertainable from the flow of the passage.

Answer D.