In the early nineteenth century, industrialists preferred to hire peop

Question

Competition Mode Question

In the early nineteenth century, industrialists preferred to hire people with no weaving experience to work in their new textile mills. Evidence of this is that, when more than 2000 people applied to work at one New England mill, only 30 of the 150 who were hired had previous experience in weaving.

The statistics cited above provide no evidence supporting the author's contention unless it is assumed that

(A) some of the unsuccessful applicants to the textile mill had experience in weaving.

(B) the nature of the work at the new textile mills made previous experience in weaving of no advantage in a worker

(C) the 30 successful applicants with weaving experience had no experience of weaving in textile mills

(D) the industrialist's preference for workers without previous experience was economically motivated

(E) prior to the nineteenth century, there was no weaving done on a large industrial scale

eakabuah · Answer

The right answer is A.

Premise: when more than 2000 people applied to work at one New England mill, only 30 of the 150 who were hired had previous experience in weaving.
Conclusion: industrialists preferred to hire people with no weaving experience to work in their new textile mills.

The argument concludes that industrialists preferred to hire people with no weaving experience to work in their new textile mills on the premise that out of the 150 people hired to work at the mill from more than 2000 applicants, only 30 had previous experience in weaving.
In order for the author's argument to hold water, then it has to be assumed that more than 30 applicants have weaving skills. What is the rationale? The conclusion of the argument suggests that there is a preference for hiring people with no weaving experience. How can there be a preference when out of the 2000 applicants only 30 had weaving experience? If only the 30 hired people with weaving experience are the only applicants out of the 2000 applicants with experience in weaving, then this argument has no premise, and in fact, the argument falls apart. So, for the argument to be credible, then it has to be assumed that more than 30 applicants had weaving experience.

A: some of the unsuccessful applicants to the textile mill had experience in weaving. This is the correct answer as it is in line with what is stated above.
B: the nature of the work at the new textile mills made previous experience in weaving of no advantage in a worker. The argument above can only have some credibility if previous experience in weaving is an advantage. Meanwhile, the question stem specifically states that  the statistics cited above provide no evidence supporting the author's contention unless it is assumed that . Hence, the correct answer choice must proceed based on the statistics cited in the argument as a premise. B does not provide any link to the statistics. B is incorrect.

C: the 30 successful applicants with weaving experience had no experience of weaving in textile mills. This is incorrect. So let's say that the 30 successful applicants indeed have no experience, the argument above would make no sense if none of the 2000 applicants have weaving experience. On the other hand, if some of the applicants have weaving experience, then the argument is valid. Since both possibilities exist in C, C is incorrect.

D: the industrialist's preference for workers without previous experience was economically motivated. Just as in B, D makes no mention to the statistics cited above in argument in line with the question stem. D is incorrect.

E: prior to the nineteenth century, there was no weaving done on a large industrial scale. E is also incorrect. It provides a piece of information that is irrelevant to the argument. It does not reconcile the statistics provided by the author in line with the question stem.

exc4libur · Answer

ARGUMENT
  2000 applied, only 150 were hired of which 30 had weaving experience;
  so, industrialists preferred to hire without experience in weaving to work in new mills;

ASSUMPTION/SUPPORT
(A) we are concerned about those hired;
(C) this doesn't mean that their skills cannot be applied in textile mills;
(D) irrelevant;
(E) irrelevant;

Ans (B)  this strengthens by stating that those with and without weaving experience are equal, or equivalent.

unraveled · Answer

In the early nineteenth century, industrialists preferred to hire people with no weaving experience to work in their new textile mills. Evidence of this is that, when more than 2000 people applied to work at one New England mill, only 30 of the 150 who were hired had previous experience in weaving.
The statistics cited above provide no evidence supporting the author's contention unless it is assumed that

(A) some of the unsuccessful applicants to the textile mill had experience in weaving. - WRONG. Some can be '1' or '99' so makes no sense here.
 
(B) the nature of the work at the new textile mills made previous experience in weaving of no advantage in a worker - CORRECT. Since no experience in weaving is equivalent to some experience in weaving to get hired for work at the new textile mill, it is clear that had there been a advantage to someone who had some form of experience in weaving, it would weaken the argument.

(C) the 30 successful applicants with weaving experience had no experience of weaving in textile mills - WRONG. The argument says that applicants need not to have any weaving experience so whatever experience the 30 successful applicants had was of no help.

(D) the industrialist's preference for workers without previous experience was economically motivated - WRONG. Irrelevant.

(E) prior to the nineteenth century, there was no weaving done on a large industrial scale - WRONG. Out of scope.

IMO Answer B.

kgaitanis · Answer

Most of the questions with fuzzy/debatable answers come from “other” sources, I think it’s a pattern

Posted from my mobile device

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

kgaitanis  That is definitely a pattern, but I'd defend this particular problem as not at all fuzzy or debatable.

The problem with the argument is that it uses the percent of experienced applicants hired as evidence of selection for inexperience. But we don't know anything about the pool of applicants! It would be like criticizing a company for discrimination based on their employee demographics without knowing the demographics of the surrounding community. What if the 30 experienced weavers who were hired were literally the only experienced people who applied, and all the other 1,970 applicants were inexperienced? Then we'd have a 100% acceptance rate for experienced vs. about 6% for inexperienced. In that case, it wouldn't look at all like employers preferred inexperienced candidates. On the other hand, if most of the applicants were experienced, but only 20% of those hired were experienced, then the acceptance rate would indeed be lower than expected, and we'd be inclined to agree with the original conclusion.

Therefor, the basic assumption here is "More than 20% of applicants were experienced." If that's true, the author has at least some point. If 20% or fewer of the applicants were experienced, then there's no sign of preference for inexperienced candidates.

So why is A right? In order for >20% of applicants, or > 400 of the pool mentioned, to be experienced, more than 370 of the rejected candidates would have to have been experienced. In order for THAT to be true, SOME (i.e. > 0) of the candidates would need to have been experienced. That's how necessary assumptions work--they describe something that is NEEDED (but not necessarily sufficient) for the argument. If you negate them, then the argument fails. If we negate A, then NONE of the rejected candidates were experienced. That conforms to the first case I mentioned, in which ALL of the experienced candidates were hired. In that case, the argument would make no sense at all.

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

unraveled

Hopefully, my comments above convince you that A is a needed assumption. Sure, if only 1 rejected candidate were experienced, that wouldn't do much for the argument, but we aren't trying to strengthen. A is still necessary.

B fails for basically the same reason. We are looking for something needed, not a strengthen. Sure, if experience was of no use, that might help the argument a bit, although it wouldn't be clear why employers would PREFER the inexperienced, and this wouldn't help us to interpret the statistics presented. But even if this were a very clear strengthen, we'd have to cut it because it isn't necessary. If we negate B--"Experience was of SOME advantage," the argument could still be correct. There could be many other reasons that inexperience was preferred, even if experience had some advantages. For instance, maybe experienced workers did slightly better work, but also demanded higher pay and better working conditions, or argued with the bosses, etc.

unraveled · Answer

Thank you Dmitry for clearing a doubt. It's been a while i attempted this question. I tried again and i got stuck again with A and B

But this time, though i wasn't again sure about A, i eliminated B. While passage makes a generic statement, B presents a specific scenario which is not necessarily required. Eventually, POE helped. Again a BIG thanks for pointing out strengthen and necessary aspects of the passage.

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

The argument tells us that industrialists in the early nineteenth century preferred to hire people with no weaving experience to work in their textile mills. The evidence provided is that at a New England mill, of the 150 people hired, only 30 had previous experience in weaving. The rest, presumably, did not have such experience.

Our goal here is to find an assumption that is necessary to link this evidence to the author's contention, which is that industrialists preferred to hire those without weaving experience.

Here's how the answer choices stack up:

(A) If some of the unsuccessful applicants to the textile mill had weaving experience, it would lend support to the claim that industrialists preferred people without such experience. This choice fills in the information gap and strengthens the argument, so it's a good candidate for the correct answer.

(B) If the nature of the work at the mills negated the advantage of previous weaving experience, industrialists might indeed prefer inexperienced workers. However, this does not explain why industrialists specifically preferred people with NO weaving experience, making it less compelling than option (A).

(C) Whether the 30 successful applicants with weaving experience had specifically worked in textile mills doesn't necessarily support the author's contention.

(D) While it may be true that the preference for inexperienced workers was economically motivated, this statement is not necessarily an assumption that supports the argument's evidence.

(E) Information about weaving in previous centuries is not relevant to the author's argument about preferences in the early nineteenth century.

Given all these considerations, option (A) fits the bill as the necessary assumption to support the argument with the provided evidence.

PSKhore · Answer

I think if they would've used "most" in this sentence instead of "some", it would've made better sense - (A) some of the unsuccessful applicants to the textile mill had experience in weaving. 
It would've meant that the majority of applicants who got rejected had experience in weaving and only some were selected.

PSKhore · Answer

You are bang on about A, I rejected A on the same line of reasoning. But for B, if the nature of the work at the new textile mills made previous experience in weaving of no advantage in a worker, the industrialist wouldn't be concerned about specifically hiring people with no experience. There would've been no distinction between people having/not having experience and the argument wouldn't make sense in that case.

In the early nineteenth century, industrialists preferred to hire peop

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