The widespread staff reductions in a certain region’s economy are said

Question

Competition Mode Question

The widespread staff reductions in a certain region’s economy are said to be causing people who still have their jobs to cut back on new purchases as though they, too, had become economically distressed. Clearly, however, actual spending by such people is undiminished, because there has been no unusual increase in the amount of money held by those people in savings accounts.

The argument in the passage proceeds by doing which one of the following?

(A) concluding that since an expected consequence of a supposed development did not take place

(B) concluding that since only one of the two predictable consequences of a certain kind of behavior is observed to occur this observed occurrence cannot, in the current situation, be a consequence of such behavior

(C) arguing that since people’s economic behavior is guided by economic self-interest only misinformation or error will cause people to engage in economic behavior that harms them economically

(D) arguing that since two alternative developments exhaust all the plausible possibilities one of those developments occurred and the other did not

(E) concluding that since the evidence concerning a supposed change is ambiguous, it is most likely that no change is actually taking place

exc4libur · Answer

argument
= staff reductions are said to cause those employed to cut spending
= but, clearly those employed did not cut spending
= because, their savings didnt increase

Ans (A) since their savings didnt increase, then they did not cut spending!

*choice (A) has a typo.

pabpinor · Answer

Ok, so here we have that in a region, some people are losing their jobs and the ones that kept them seems that are spending less because they are worried. 
However, despite sales being down, the ones that still have jobs are not saving more money.

We are asked to find a reason (assumption) for it:

A. Could be that they are paying off their debts in advance because of the fear of being laid off. This could fit with the sales decline and savings balances stagnant, but there are no indications of it.

B. Maybe they are supporting their relatives that become unemployed. This also fits the sales and savings situation.

C. If unemployed ones get new low-income jobs, they won't have money to spend. That would be in the future, we are considering actual jobs (market unchanged), if not could not make sense neither because the ones with previous higher-pay jobs would still save more and in general savings will grow something.

D. They are pessimistic about their future income. If they were, they would save more, no? Does not provide a point neither.

E. There are not proper statistics about expenditure in the region as a whole. Even if there are not in the region as a whole, we need to have some data to know that employed people cut their new purchases.

So could be A or B? (C would imply a future situation so should not be considered).
I would say that in A we are assuming all employed people have active debts (could be a general assumption for the US population). With B we would need to assume that all employed people have unemployed relatives to support, could be, but is more of a fraction of the employed people (and could be families of all-employed members that would not fir the arguments).

So I guess A is the best option.

Regards,
Pablo

talismaaniac · Answer

A.
My reasoning.
Expected outcome of reduced purchases is increase in saving. But that doesn't happen

Posted from my mobile device

jrk23 · Answer

As we can see there is a contrast by using the word "however" so author was not expecting this result. So some reason should come to explain why this was happened even after staff reduction.

In "A" the word development is confusing me.

D- Irrelevant

E- is saying no change is taking pace so I thnk its not correct two

C- can be but I am not sure

Anyone please correct me if I am wrong.

GptShubham · Answer

Can anyone explain why B is wrong here?

pabpinor · Answer

Hi  GptShubham

I did provide some explanation about it on my solution, though could make you think that is sufficient, that would be assuming that all employed people have family members that lost their jobs, also that all have family members. If some do not have family members or all their family members are still employed would not be sufficient.

I hope it helps you understand it, I'm no expert but that was my thought. Maybe someone else can provide better arguments.

Regards,
Pablo

Mavisdu1017 · Answer

Yes I think the same, but A seems like a incomplete sentence (only half of a sentence), so a little bit weird..

VerbalBot · Answer

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The widespread staff reductions in a certain region’s economy are said

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The widespread staff reductions in a certain region’s economy are said

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