If I wouldn't have attempted this kind of argument, similar in structure, in the past then I most probably would have selected the wrong answer.
Premise one: there was a survey conducted of office managers who got printing equipment over the last five years.
Premise two: the result of that survey is that 12% of laser printers need servicing once whereas only 3% of inkjet printers required any sort of servicing.
Therefore choosing inkjet printers will give comparatively fewer disruptions in offices from laser printers.
Now for an assumption question we need to bridge the gap of premise to the conclusion.
Pre thinking - What if we can't expect fewer workflow disruptions from inkjet printers over laser printers?
Maybe these servicing stats don't actually reflect the interruption occurrence in the offices. What if 12% of laser printer servicing is giving negligence interruptions to offices as compared to 3% of inkjet printers.
Now it's clear that we need to defend the argument from any possible alternative explanations that can derive the conclusion.Bunuel
A survey of office managers who had acquired new printing equipment over the previous five years found that twelve percent of laser printers in use had needed servicing on more than one occasion, compared with just three percent of inkjet printers that had ever required any servicing at all. Offices that depend on uninterrupted access to printing should therefore expect far fewer workflow disruptions by choosing inkjet over laser printers.
Which of the following is an assumption the argument relies on?
(A) Inkjet printers do not produce noticeably lower print quality than laser printers for standard office documents.
(B) Offices that use laser printers are not far more likely to operate them at substantially higher print volumes over time than offices that use inkjet printers.
(C) At least as many offices in the survey had acquired laser printers as had acquired inkjet printers.
(D) Laser printers do not generally require longer periods of downtime for each service visit than inkjet printers do.
(E) Offices that acquired printing equipment within the past year are not far more likely to have chosen laser printers than offices that acquired equipment five years ago.
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A - Even if inject printers produce lower quality, it doesn't affect the argument of interruptions in the workflow.
B - Upon negating this option we realize that laser printers are being used in substantially higher print volumes compared to inkjet printers and that might be the cause of the given stats in the premises. The negation of this statement destroys our conclusion and hence this option defends our conclusion from any possible alternative explanation.
C - This is not a must-be statement because we already have the data of laser printers getting serviced compared to inkjet printers. This statement does not affect our argument.
D - Our argument doesn't depend on the duration of repair time. It depends on the occurrence of servicing with respect to the interruption in workflow.
E - Now the stats of last year of offices acquiring far more laser printers doesn't affect the argument's over all 5 years. Even if the offices chose laser printers last year, the premise of 12 % of all requiring services remains the same and hence doesn't affect our argument.