Under current federal law, employers are allowed to offer their employ

Because in argument everything revolves around cost aspects and nothing else. So, straightforward its D.
E, on the other hand, is something of an ideal condition in real life but that is not an assumption for the argument here.

Under current federal law, employers are allowed to offer their employees free parking spaces as a tax-free benefit, but they can offer employees only up to $180 per year as a tax-free benefit for using mass transit. The government could significantly increase mass transit ridership by raising the limit of this benefit to meet commuters??? transportation costs.

The proposal above to increase mass transit ridership assumes that


(A) current mass transit systems are subject to unexpected route closings and delays

(B) using mass transit creates less air pollution per person than using a private automobile

(C) the parking spaces offered by employers as tax-free benefits can be worth as much as $2,500 per year

(D) many employees are deterred by financial considerations from using mass transit to commute to their places of employment

(E) because of traffic congestion on major commuter routes, it is often faster to travel to one???s place of employment by means of mass transit than by private automobile

I can't explain myself why D is the answer!

Hello, Tafannum. This is a standard assumption question, so we need to find a necessary condition that would tie into the logic of the proposal. What does the passage lay out for us?



Sentence 1 broaches the topic at the heart of the matter. We see that there are two possibilities for employers to offer employees something related to transportation as a tax-free benefit to the employer. The first option is free parking spaces; the second is up to $180 per year... for using mass transit.

Sentence 2 gives us a projection that more employees would use mass transit if the government would raise the $180-per-year mass transit credit, since, presumably, commuters' transportation costs exceed that amount.

The assumption must have a firm grounding in the passage, so let us see what the answers have in store.


We have to assume such problems for the proposal to make sense? Why would anyone want to take mass transit if it were so unreliable? Remember, the passage tells us that the government could significantly increase mass transit ridership. This answer choice provides a reason why people might not want to use it. There is no logic to connect this choice to anything presented in the passage.


Be that as it may, air pollution is not a concern for us. Remember, we have to find a missing piece of information that would necessarily allow the proposal to seem reasonable. The passage does not indicate anything about pollution, so it does not need to draw a comparison about pollution between different modes of transportation.


Wow, really? The proposal has to assume that these parking spaces could be worth up to that exact figure? If that makes sense to you, then you must be clairvoyant. Although the information here is loosely tied to the passage, it is in no way required for us to see how the proposal about increasing mass transit ridership could be sensible.


This makes perfect sense. I know it may seem like a small thing, but notice the many. Since the rationale is that, again, the government could significantly increase mass transit ridership by..., there have to be many employees hanging in the balance, or, in other words, the decision has to affect a lot of people. If many workers currently drive because they feel it is too expensive to use mass transit, then the proposal would indeed have firm grounding: a lot of people would stand to gain if their employers could cover the cost of using mass transit, since the government would have increased the amount of tax-free benefits it provided such employers. This is our answer.


This is a nice distraction, but nothing more. You might reason that more people would ride mass transit if the government were to provide increased benefits to employers to pass on to employees, but there is a piece missing. This answer choice has nothing to do with money, but with speed instead. Since the passage does not concern itself with commute times one way or the other, this cannot be the necessary assumption we seek.

I hope that helps answer your question. If not, I would be happy to discuss the matter further. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

after reading the question ,we can predict assumption must be related to money.
only option d matches

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