In order to save $500,000 in this year’s budget, the city council vote

Question

In order to save $500,000 in this year’s budget, the city council voted to freeze the salaries of its school building inspectors. This shortsighted decision is yet another example of the council’s being penny wise and pound foolish. The cursory inspections that will result from this action will cause many structural defects to go undetected, resulting in millions more dollars being spent on repairs in the future.

In order for his argument to be logically correct, the author of the above argument used which of the following statements as an unstated underlying assumption? ​

A) City inspectors are already overpaid and so the wage freeze is warranted. ​
B) The city council cares less about the safety of the school children than it does about saving money. ​
C) If they do not receive an increase in their wages, school inspectors will become lax in performing their jobs. ​
D) The council does not feel that cursory inspections will necessarily result in defects going undetected. ​
E) The council will not authorize repairs in the future, so it will never have to incur the extra costs.

rhythminme2008 · Accepted Answer

I believe that this question is poorly written. The correct answer choice assumes that “freezing salaries” means the same as not increasing the current wages of school building inspectors. Is this a necessary assumption in order for the logic to work? No. I think the question writer should have worded it exactly like it was written in the question stem.

KanishkM · Answer

So what the argument mention is that 
If the initial salary was $1000, the city council has planned to freeze it.

This decision is a foolish one and not at all supported.

The cursory inspections that will result from this action will cause many structural defects to go undetected, resulting in millions more dollars being spent on repairs in the future.

So the author clearly assumes that safety inspectors wont do their job perfectly or efficiently.

A) City inspectors are already overpaid and so the wage freeze is warranted. ​
This is not at all relevant to the scope of the argument.

B) The city council cares less about the safety of the school children than it does about saving money. ​
This is way OOS.

C) If they do not receive an increase in their wages, school inspectors will become lax in performing their jobs. ​
 The same was derived by us as well.

D) The council does not feel that cursory inspections will necessarily result in defects going undetected. ​
Nothing is mentioned about this in the argument, OOS.

E) The council will not authorize repairs in the future, so it will never have to incur the extra costs
Not relevant to the scope of the argument, "future".

btrg · Answer

If this was the option i.e. instead of children i places building. Then, could it be the right option?

B) The city council cares less about the safety of the school building than it does about saving money. ​

GMATMBA5 · Answer

No, it would be wrong even in that case. The question stem can be simplified as -

1) City council voted to freeze salaries of inspectors
2) This will result in cursory(not so thorough) inspections.
3) And this will result in high maintenance costs in future.

Point 3 will happen only if point 2 happens, when the inspections are not thorough. And the inspections won't be thorough only when school inspectors become lax in performing their jobs.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Kudos if helpful!

Vis777 · Answer

Answer should be D . Since if govt will be able to know detection without them there will be no use of the deptt

Posted from my mobile device

himanshugoyal26 · Answer

VeritasKarishma ,  GMATNinja ,  Bunuel , @chiranjeevsingh- Can you please explain this question?

KarishmaB · Answer

The assumption is a missing necessary premise.

Premise: City council is freezing the salary of building inspectors.

Intermediate Conclusion: The cursory inspections that will result from this action will cause many structural defects to go undetected, resulting in millions more dollars being spent on repairs in the future.

Conclusion: The decision is shortsighted.

The author is assuming that freezing salaries will lead to cursory inspections to derive his intermediate conclusion. Based on his intermediate conclusion, he is arriving at the conclusion.

This is option (C). Rest of the options are all irrelevant/illogical.

KarishmaB · Answer

Freezing salaries does mean no increment. 
If you are wondering whether it could mean giving no salary, that is not possible. The inspectors will not work without salaries.

jabhatta2 · Answer

Hi  VeritasKarishma  - Follow-up on C if I were to negate C

Questions stem is talking about freezing salaries (Freezing salaries to my understanding is NO salary to be paid to the inspectors at all --  Q1 Is my assumption on Freezing salaries right ? )

q2) Is my negation accurate on C ?

Negation C -- If no increase in wages, inspectors may or may not become lax

Thus negation creates 2 scenarios

-- if they dont become lax, the argument is weakened 
-- if they do become lax, the argument is strengthened

Thus negation C does not weaken the argument in every scenario per my understanding of how negation works !

Please feel free to correct me

KarishmaB · Answer

Freezing something means fixing it, not allowing it to change. 
Freeze salaries means maintain the same salaries.

Sajjad1994 · Answer

OE

The passage attempts to justify the conclusion that the city will eventually have to pay much more than it is now saving. Having first read the question, you were on the lookout for a flaw in the passage’s logic (the passage’s failure to state an underlying assumption). Therefore, you probably picked up the subtle shift from  “freeze the salaries”  in the first sentence to perform  “cursory inspections”  in the third sentence. If you did, you might have said to yourself,  “The fact that the wages of the inspectors are not being raised does not necessarily mean that they will retaliate by rendering poorer service.”  This then is the gap in the passage’s logic. To justify the conclusion presented, you need to assume that freezing salaries will result in cursory or slipshod inspections; and this is precisely what  Choice C  says.

Answer: C

In order to save $500,000 in this year’s budget, the city council vote

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

In order to save $500,000 in this year’s budget, the city council vote

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards