ShashankDave wrote:
VeritasPrepBrandon wrote:
This is an assumption critical reasoning question, with a very weak argument presented. The author states that unemployment has risen less during her time in office than it did during her predecessor's time, and therefore her economic policies must be more effective. It is a horrible argument, because there are thousands of possible factors that could have contributed to this other than the economic policies that she has set. So I am going into the answer choices looking for an answer choice that rules out some other possible reasons.
Answer choice A weakens the argument if anything. If the population dropped significantly, then maybe it was easier for people to find jobs (which could have stayed more constant), regardless of economic policy.
Answer choice B is out of scope, as it is focused on the national economy, and also would weaken the argument if anything by showing generally better economic conditions during the time that she was in office over her predecessor's time.
Answer choice C is correct because it rules out a couple of other possible factors. If you negate this (Key socioeconomic variables...are NOT comparable for each administration) and plug it back into the argument, you can see that the argument disintegrates - which is what you are looking for on assumption critical reasoning questions.
Answer choice D would strengthen the argument, but it isn't a necessary assumption. There could have been many smaller changes that the administration made, or blunders that it avoided, rather than key policy changes that it made.
Answer choice E may also strengthen the argument (if we assume that she was responsible for implementing those tax incentives), but it is not a required assumption because she could have done something else with economic policy that reduced the growth in unemployment and the argument would still hold.
I hope this helps!
Could have agreed with C,but I don't. Since its an assumption question, it cannot bring anything in that is out of scope. What it brings in as something out of scope is that it talks about comparison of 'the state of the NATIONAL ECONOMY. We are talking about a county, not the nation. If C included only "demographics of the county", then It would be right on, but we cannot include national economy's state when we're talking about a particular county. I had to choose D. Please somebody explain.
If you are choosing D then why not E...tax incentives will bring new business and jobs for unemployed?
the major assumption u r missing here is that two conditions are comparable. what if under predecessor administration an earthquake causes lots of destruction? so in order o compare present administration with the past, the variables must be comparable like state of economy, and number of population.
suppose the number of population in past administration was 100 (14/100= 14%) and now population increased to 300 (14/250 = 4%). see changing the number of population, you will get different unemployment rate.
_________________
Push yourself again and again. Don't give an inch until the final buzzer sounds. -Larry Bird
Success isn't something that just happens - success is learned, success is practiced and then it is shared. -Sparky Anderson
-S