Bunuel wrote:
When unemployment rates are high, people with full-time jobs tend to take fewer and shorter vacations. When unemployment rates are low, people tend to vacation more often and go away for longer periods of time. Thus, it can be concluded that full-time workers’ perceptions of their own job security influence the frequency and duration of their vacations.
The argument above assumes that
(A) the people who take the longest vacations when unemployment rates are low have no fear of losing their jobs
(B) travel costs are lower during times of low unemployment
(C) most people prefer to work full-time jobs
(D) workers’ perceptions of their own job security are in some way related to the unemployment rate
(E) workers’ fears of losing their jobs have increased recently
Official Explanation:
Step 1: Identify the Question TypeThe word “assumes” in the question stem is a clear indication of an Assumption question.
Step 2: Untangle the Stimulus“Thus” signals the argument’s conclusion. You could paraphrase it as follows: how much vacation time full-time workers take depends on how secure they feel in their jobs. The author’s evidence for this conclusion is the relationship between vacations and unemployment. When unemployment is high, workers take fewer and shorter vacations; when unemployment is low, the opposite happens.
Step 3: Predict the AnswerTo find the central assumption, use Critical Thinking to link the terms in the evidence with the terms in the conclusion. If the evidence centers on employment levels and vacations, and if the conclusion centers on job security and vacations, then the central assumption must center on the connection between employment levels and job security.
Step 4: Evaluate the ChoicesChoice (D) matches this prediction perfectly by bridging the terms of the evidence with the terms of the conclusion. The Denial Test can help confirm (D) as the correct answer; if there were no relationship between workers’ perceptions of job security and the unemployment rate, then it would no longer make sense for the author to use evidence about the unemployment rate to support a conclusion about workers’ perceptions of job security. (D) is an assumption necessary for the argument to hold.
The other choices are all incorrect in some definable way. It’s great practice to identify exactly why each wrong choice is wrong. Doing so will help you develop your Pattern Recognition skills so you can identify common wrong answer types on Test Day. (A) is too extreme (“no fear of losing their jobs”) to be the necessary assumption. (B) introduces the idea of travel costs, which are far outside the scope of the stimulus and have no necessary connection to job security in the conclusion. (C) similarly steps outside the scope; whether those people who work full-time jobs prefer to work them is irrelevant. (E) tells us that workers’ perceptions of their job security have deteriorated lately, but that has no necessary connection to the unemployment rate. Remember that the assumption must successfully link the evidence to the conclusion.
The correct answer is (D).