The shoe factory in Centerville is the town's largest firm,

Question

The shoe factory in Centerville is the town's largest firm, and it employs more unskilled workers on a full-time basis than all of the other businesses in town combined. Therefore, if the shoe factory closes down and ceases all operations, more
 than half of Centerville's residents who are unskilled workers with full-time jobs in Centerville will lose their jobs. 

The conclusion above logically follows from the premises if which one of the following is assumed?

a. More people who now are residents of Centerville are employed than are unemployed.
b. Centerville has more unskilled workers among its population than it has skilled workers.
c. The shoe factory in Centerville employs more unskilled workers than skilled workers. 
d. The shoe factory in Centerville employs no one who is not a resident of Centerville. 
e. There are no factories in Centerville other than the shoe factory.

Please explain your reasoning.

qhoc0010 · Answer

Hmm, tough one. I would go with (A)

hilairity · Answer

I do think we should always try to explain our reasoning. Doesn't do much good to guess at an answer. 

In this case, I'm fairly sure the answer is D). However, I will say that something seems fishy here, I mean, I think something is missing from the question and response.  kdhong , could you post the OA and explanation, please? 

Here's what I'm thinking:
The stimulus tells you that the shoe factory employs more of the workers in question (unskilled workers on a full-time basis) than any of the other companies in Centerville. Let the number of those workers that the shoe factory employs be A and the number for the other companies in Centerville be B, C, and D.

A > B + C + D

so A is greater than half. The conclusion states that if the shoe factory closes, more than half of Centerville's residents who fit that description will lose their jobs. In order to know this, you have to know that more than half of Centerville's residents who fit that description work for the shoe factory. 

Herein lies the problem. If you know that the shoe factory employs ONLY residents of Centerville (answer choice D), in order to know that the conclusion is true, you also have to know that less than half of Centerville's residents who fit that description work for firms  outside  Centerville. 

Let's look at the other answer choices, though:
 a. More people who now are residents of Centerville are employed than are unemployed.  
Doesn't matter, you don't know how many of those are unskilled and employed full-time. Out of scope.
 b. Centerville has more unskilled workers among its population than it has skilled workers.  
Again, comparisons between unskilled and skilled are out of the scope of the question.
 c. The shoe factory in Centerville employs more unskilled workers than skilled workers.  
Out of scope.
 e. There are no factories in Centerville other than the shoe factory. 
Doesn't mean that there aren't other types of businesses besides factories that employ unskilled workers on a full-time basis.

D) is the best, but my conclusion is that I think the question is faulty.

Anybody see a problem with my reasoning?

kdhong · Answer

OA is D.
The first sentence of the passage tells us that the shoe factory employs more than half of all full-time unskilled workers employed in Centerville. D says that everyone employed by the shoe factory is also a resident of Centerville. This means that the shoe factory employs more than half of all Centerville residents who are full-time unskilled workers employed in Centerville.

hilairity · Answer

The passage doesn't say that the workers the shoe factory employs are residents of Centerville. That's they key piece of missing information.

patrickpui · Answer

my choice was between b and d. I finally picked D

For b, the problem is that the town has more unskilled workers than skill workers does not explain why "half of the resident of the town who are unskilled will lose their job". It does look tempting since it places the focus on "unskilled"

D is sound as it connect why "half of the resident of the town who are unskilled will lose their job". If the impact is that great, then either many of the town resident work for the factory (stated) or only town residents work there. 

Good question

The shoe factory in Centerville is the town's largest firm,

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