Self-study
Museum visitor: The national government has mandated a 5 percent increase in the minimum wage paid to all workers. ████ ███████ ████ █████████ ██████ ███ ████████████ ███████ ███ ████████ ███████ ████ ███ █████████ ██████ ███ █████████ ███ █████ ███ ███████ ████ █████████████ ████████ ███ ████████ █████████ █████████ ███ ██████ ████ ██ ██████ ██████ ██ █████ █████████ ████ ██ ██ ████████ █████████
Summary
The increase in minimum wage will negatively impact museum-goers, because it will increase museum expenses and that will come out of museum-goers’ pockets.
Notable Assumptions
The museum visitor has jumped from a mandate with specific rules to an expected outcome about museums, but we don’t know that museums will qualify for the mandate. If the mandate affects museum workers and raises their minimum wage, the museum visitor’s argument stands a chance. But we don’t know that it actually will affect museum workers.
9.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███ ██████ █████████ █████████
a
Some of the ████████ █████████ ███ ███ ████ █████████████ ████ ████ ███ ███████ █████
This must be true. You would negate “some,” and that leads to:
“None of the museum’s employees are not paid significantly more than the minimum wage.”
There’s your negation, but for simplicity’s sake, take advantage of the double negative. “None are not” is the same as “All are.” So, the simpler negation of (A) is:
“All of the museum’s employees are paid significantly more than the minimum wage.”
This negation wrecks the argument; if all of them are already paid more than minimum wage, then this mandate won’t affect museums.
b
The museum's revenue ████ █████████ ████ ███ ████████ ████████ ████ ███ ████ ████ ██████
It doesn’t matter how stable or unstable this factor is—it has no effect on the argument either way. The argument is concerned with how it will change in the future.
c
Some of the ████████ █████████ ███ ████ ████ ████ ███ ███████ ███████ █████
The negation of (C) would strengthen the argument, rather than ruin it: “None of the museum’s employees...” If this is true, then we have more reason to believe that the mandate will affect museum employees.
d
The annual number ██ ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ███ █████████ █████████
Not necessary for the conclusion. Whether this has increased, decreased or stayed constant, it doesn’t affect the argument.
e
Not all visitors ██ ███ ██████ ███ ████████ ██ ███ ██ █████████ ████
The negation of (E) doesn’t ruin this argument: “All visitors to the museum are required...” Museum operating expenses could still be higher than revenue, and museums could still turn to admission fees and decreased services to solve the problem.