Summarize Argument
The economist concludes that companies are likely to lay off employees during recessions. This is because layoffs affect morale less than wage reductions.
Notable Assumptions
The economist believes that companies will undertake the action that affects morale the least in a recession. This means the economist assumes other considerations simply aren’t as important to companies, including financial considerations—the economist never claims that layoffs and wage reductions are equally cost-efficient.
A
Employee morale is usually the primary concern driving companies’ decisions about whether to lay off employees or to reduce their wages.
Companies indeed do decide mainly based on morale. This strengthens the economist’s argument that companies will go with the option that’s best for morale.
B
In general, companies increase wages only when they are unable to find enough qualified employees.
Wage increases aren’t on the table here.
C
Some companies will be unable to make a profit during recessions no matter how much they reduce personnel costs.
We don’t care whether they’ll make a profit. We’re interested in how they’ll reduce costs.
D
When companies cut personnel costs during recessions by reducing wages, some employees usually resign.
We have no idea if this would be a good thing or a bad thing for a company. Thus, this could be a strengthener or a weakener. We don’t want to assume which one it is.
E
Some companies that have laid off employees during recessions have had difficulty finding enough qualified employees once economic growth resumed.
This seems to weaken the economist’s argument. We’re trying to do the opposite.
Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
The author concludes that our concert series has popular appeal. This is based on the fact that our income from sales of t-shirts and other memorabilia at concerts is at least as great as that from similar sales at comparable concert series.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The author assumes that sales from t-shirts and other memorabilia is an indicator of the popularity of a concert series. The author also assumes that the comparable series mentioned in the premise have popular appeal. This overlooks the possibility that those comparable series are not popular and that the sales levels do not indicate the presence of popular appeal.
A
attacks the critics on the basis of emotional considerations rather than factual ones
The author does not cite to emotional considerations in the premise supporting the conclusion.
B
takes for granted that income from sales of memorabilia is the sole indicator of popular appeal
The author doesn’t assume that income from memorabilia sales is the “sole” indicator of popular appeal. She assumes that it is one indicator, but that doesn’t mean she thinks it’s the only one. Maybe other indicators include social media virality; this doesn’t hurt the argument.
C
takes for granted that the comparable series possess popular appeal
If this assumption were not true, then the author cannot prove that our series has popular appeal based on its similar sales to a series that isn’t popular. So, the author must take for granted that the comparable series does have popularity.
D
draws a conclusion about the popularity of a series based on a comparison with other, dissimilar events
The author cites to “comparable series.” There’s no indication that these series are dissimilar to our concert series.
E
fails to adequately distinguish the series as a whole from individual concerts in it
The argument cites to sales at “the concerts,” which refers to the concert series. Both the premise and the conclusion concern the series as a whole, not individual concerts. So the argument doesn’t need to distinguish between the series and individual concerts.
Summary
According to the stimulus, sunlight contains both UV-A and UV-B radiation. UV-A causes wrinkles, and UV-B causes sunburn. Until about 10 years ago, sunscreen blocked UV-B, but did not block UV-A.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
These facts support the inference that before 10 years ago, sunscreen did protect against sunburn, but it did not protect against wrinkles.
A
Since about ten years ago, the percentage of people who wear sunscreen every time they spend time in the sun has increased.
This is not supported. The stimulus never mentions the percentage of people who wear sunscreen, so we can’t know if it has increased or not.
B
Most people whose skin is prematurely wrinkled have spent a large amount of time in the sun without wearing sunscreen.
This is not supported. The stimulus tells us that sun exposure is one cause of premature wrinkles, but we don’t know if it’s the predominant cause. Also, until at least 10 years ago, sunscreen didn’t even make a difference to wrinkling.
C
The specific cause of premature skin wrinkling was not known until about ten years ago.
This is not supported. Just because sunscreen didn’t protect against UV-A radiation until 10 years ago, that doesn’t mean the connection between UV-A and wrinkles was unknown. Maybe it just took a long time to develop effective UV-A blocking sunscreen.
D
People who wear sunscreen now are less likely to become sunburned than were people who spent the same amount of time in the sun wearing sunscreen ten years ago.
This is not supported. Based on the stimulus, sunscreen 10 years ago did protect against the UV-B rays that cause sunburn, so there’s no reason to believe that modern sunscreen provides more protection against sunburn.
E
Until about ten years ago, people who wore sunscreen were no less likely to have premature wrinkles than were people who spent the same amount of time in the sun without wearing sunscreen.
This is strongly supported. The stimulus says that before 10 years ago, sunscreen didn’t protect against UV-A rays, which cause wrinkles. That means that wearing sunscreen could not have lowered anyone’s chance of wrinkling prematurely.
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author concludes that tent caterpillars engage in communal foraging. This is because tent caterpillars mark their routes to food with pheromones, and moreover mark routes to food more heavily than roots that don’t lead to food.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that tent caterpillars are attempting to convey information to one another by marking their trails, and that other caterpillars can pick up on such markings. If tent caterpillars don’t sense pheromones, then these trails would be useless.
A
A hungry tent caterpillar is more likely to follow heavily marked routes than lightly marked routes.
Hungry tent caterpillars know which routes to follow to food. This means tent caterpillars can indeed pick up on pheromones, and moreover know what heavily marked trails signify.
B
Tent caterpillars can detect the presence but not the concentration of pheromones.
If tent caterpillars can’t detect the concentration of pheromones, then the author’s claim about heavily marked paths is useless. This weakens the argument.
C
Sometimes individual tent caterpillars will not return to the nest until a food source is located.
This is irrelevant. The paths these tent caterpillars make would nevertheless lead to food.
D
The pheromones left by tent caterpillars are different from the pheromones left by other animals.
We don’t even know if tent caterpillars can sense pheromones.
E
The pheromones that tent caterpillars leave behind are detectable by certain other species of caterpillars.
We need to know if tent caterpillars can detect pheromones themselves. We don’t care what other caterpillars can do.
A
presumes, without providing justification, that expertise in a subject does not enable one to teach that subject well
The argument doesn’t involve the quality of teaching. Whether one teaches a subject well or not isn’t related to the premise or the conclusion.
B
purports to refute a view by showing that one possible reason for that view is insufficient
The author tries to refute the math department’s view that it should teach the class by showing that one possible reason for that view — the fact that the class has math — is inadequate. This is flawed beacuse there could be other reasons supporting the math department’s view.
C
presumes, without providing justification, that most students are as knowledgeable about mathematics as they are about history
History is referenced to show that the fact a class has math doesn’t mean it needs to be taught by a math prof. We wouldn’t think a history prof. needs to teach a class just because it has history. What students know about math/history is unrelated to this line of reasoning.
D
fails to establish that mathematics professors are not capable of teaching Statistics for the Social Sciences effectively
The author doesn’t need to show that math profs can’t teach the class effectively. The author’s position is that they don’t need to have sole responsibility for teaching it. Maybe they can be effective, and others can be effective as well, and others should also teach the class.
E
presumes, without providing justification, that any policies that apply to history courses must be justified with respect to mathematics courses
The author doesn’t cite to any history “policy.” The reference to history is merely to illustrate the principle that the fact a class involves a particular subject doesn’t mean only profs from that subject’s department must teach the class. There’s no history “policy” referenced.