#20 - Railroad spokesperson: Of course it is a difficult

[Adam Tyson]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption - CE. The correct answer choice is (B).

In the first sentence, the author provides a little background, telling us that maintaining quality is hard when subsidies are reduced. The argument really begins in the second sentence, with the premise that the number of passengers has increased despite reduced subsidies (and, presumably, the added difficulty of maintaining quality). The author concludes that the quality of the service must be satisfactory. They are doing good enough to satisfy passengers, despite whatever difficulties they might be facing. In short, the argument looks something like this:

Premise: Passenger number are up

Conclusion: Passengers must be satisfied

There is an implied causal relationship here - the author seems to think that if passengers were not satisfied, they would not ride the train. Dissatisfaction would cause there to be fewer passengers. The argument is essentially that in the absence of that effect, that cause must also be absent. Look for an answer that indicates that causal relationship, without which the author's argument would make no sense.

Answer choice (A): An irrelevant answer, this has nothing to do with either passenger satisfaction or the number of passengers choosing to ride the train.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. This answer states the causal relationship upon which the argument rested. The negation of this answer can be a little tricky due to the double negative: No people refuse to travel by train if they are dissatisfied. It might be helpful to restate this in simpler terms: everyone will keep riding even if they don't like it! If that is the case, then the increased numbers would tell us nothing about how satisfied people are, and there is no longer any reason to believe the conclusion. That is the impact you want from a correct Assumption answer when it is negated.

Answer choice (C): Improved quality is not required, and in fact quality could have decreased, so long as passengers remain satisfied.
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Answer choice (D): "Impossible" is very strong language, which is unusual to find in the correct answer to an Assumption question. The author doesn't need to assume anything quite so strong. The argument does not require any assumptions about what impact reduced subsidies must have - there could be no impact, or a huge impact, just so long as having more passengers indicates that those passengers are satisfied.

Answer choice (E): While this may be true, and might explain why passengers are satisfied, it is not a necessary assumption. It could still be the case that revenues are not making up the shortfall from lost subsidies and that passengers remain satisfied despite that loss. This answer has nothing to do with the level of satisfaction of the passengers, and so is not what we need.

[hassan66]

Hi, this is in regards to PrepTest 14 - February 1995 Section 2, Q20. I chose B correctly the first time but then on review,
I hesitated. But this was my reasoning for B:

A) irrelevant
C) you don't have to assume the quality improved, only that it remained satisfactory or isn't terrible now.
D) When you negate this, it says that it is possible to reduce subsidies without some effect on the quality of service which would support the conclusion so this might actually weaken the argument. (I also thought impossible was too strong a word).
E) irrelevant, we care about the intersection between quality, service and passenger increase

B) When you negate this, if no one refuses to travel even if they aren't happy with the service, then you can't assume that the quality is good because there could be other reasons that they are sticking with the terrible service (ie it is the only way to get to work etc). So if you assume that some people wouldn't travel if they weren't happy with the service, then you can more easily assume that if the numbers of passengers increased, at least some people are happy with the service or the number of passengers would have dipped.

Is this a valid way of arriving to the correct choice?

[James Finch]

Hi Hassan,

It looks like you narrowed the answer choices down to (B) and (D), and then used the Assumption Negation technique to correctly choose between them. If so, that's perfect! We never want to negate all five answer choices, but only two or at most three contenders. It sounds like you correctly negated the two contending choices, and were able to then see the correct one.

Good job!

[Tamirra]

Hi,

I've been putting my nose to the grindstone on the Assumption Negation technique and I must say I'm struggling a little bit.

I, too, reduced my answer choices to B and D and negated both properly but then chose D. Is the reason that D is incorrect the strength of the word "impossible?"

Are there any areas in the Forum that discuss this further? I've done the work in the workbook and I'm negating correctly, I just can't seem to apply it to the stimulus.Should I be looking more at the conclusion or the argument?

Thanks,
Tamirra

[Adam Tyson]

While the use of "impossible" makes this answer suspect, Tamirra, because Assumption answers are rarely that strong, there's more to it than that. The bigger issue is that the negation of answer D doesn't do anything to harm the argument, and in fact it may even be seen to agree with the argument. We need an answer that, when negated, breaks the connection between the premises (about an increase in the number in passengers) and the conclusion (service must be satisfactory). The negation should take away the entire logical force of that argument. Answer D doesn't even address the issue of satisfaction!

If your negations are correct, in that you are making the answer choices false, but you still aren't seeing which answer is correct, then perhaps you aren't looking for the right impact of that negation. Look for the answer that, when negated, makes you say to yourself "oh, now there is no reason to believe that conclusion any more. This argument makes no sense now." See if that allows you to convert your successful negations into clear winning answers. Keep up the good work!

[MeliXi]

I see why B is right, but I'm still stuck on E.

this is the way I thought about it:
- it's difficult to maintain quality of service if incoming funds are reduced as a result of the reduced subsidies AKA sufficient revenue is often required for service to be satisfactory
- but there has been an increase in the number of passengers
- quality of service has still been satisfactory because that requirement of sufficient revenue is being met

In other words, I thought the author was concluding that if sufficient revenues were received, as a result of the increase of passengers offsetting the subsidy reductions, then we can conclude that the quality of service has been satisfactory. OR that if the quality of service has been satisfactory, then sufficient revenues have been raised. regardless of which way it goes, I saw the two as being linked.

[KelseyWoods]

Hi MeliXi!

As the explanation states above, answer choice (E) could possibly be true, but it is not necessary for the argument:

While this may be true, and might explain why passengers are satisfied, it is not a necessary assumption. It could still be the case that revenues are not making up the shortfall from lost subsidies and that passengers remain satisfied despite that loss. This answer has nothing to do with the level of satisfaction of the passengers, and so is not what we need.

Use the Assumption Negation Technique on (E):
The negation of (E) would be: The increase in the number of passengers will NOT increase revenue sufficiently to offset the subsidy reductions.

Does that kill the argument? Nope! The author's conclusion is not that the quality of service is the same as it was when subsidies were higher. The author's conclusion is that the quality of service is satisfactory to the passengers. Even if revenues have gone down and this has resulted in slower quality of service, it could still be the case that passengers find this lower level of service satisfactory.

Thus, answer choice (E) does not pass the Assumption Negation Technique and is not a necessary assumption of the argument.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey