Self-study
It has recently been found that job prospects for college graduates have never been better. ███ █████ ██ ██████ ██ ████████ ████ ███ ████ ███████ █ ██████ ██████ █████ ████ ████ █████████ ██████ ███ ███ ████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ████████ ██████████ █████ ████ ██ ██ ███████ ████ ███ ████ ███ ██████ ███ ███ ███ ███████████ ██ ███████ ███ ████ ██████ ████ █████████ ████ ███ █████ █████ ████████ ███ ██████ ██ █████████ █████████ █████ ███████ ████ █████████ █████ ███████ ███ ████ ██████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████████████ ████████ ██ █████ ████████ ██ ████ ███████ ████ ███████████ ███ ████████████ ███ ███████ ██████████████ ████ █████ ██ ██████ ██ ████████ ████ ███ ████ ███████
Future Prediction
The stimulus states that job prospects for college graduates "have never been better," and predicts that this trend will continue over the next decade. As support, the stimulus points to a recent survey showing that most employers weren't prepared for the decrease in college graduates over the last decade and are not aware that the supply of graduates may no longer continue to meet demand. The survey also pointed out a significant decrease in the number of undergraduates studying high-demand subjects — another trend that will likely continue over the next decade.
Analysis: Net Effect
The author points to a number of trends identified by the survey to justify his prediction that job prospects for college graduates will continue to be favorable over the next decade. These trends include the fact that employers were mostly unprepared for a past decrease in the number of college graduates and seem mostly unaware that the supply of graduates may not continue to meet demand in the future, and the fact that fewer undergraduates are studying high-demand subjects, a trend that is itself on track to continue.
From all this information, the author concludes that job prospects for college graduates will continue to be good — i.e., that the net effect of these trends will be ongoing favorable job prospects for graduates. The point is that these trends plausibly allow us to infer that there will soon be a greater demand for college graduates, at least in some fields, than there will be supply. If this were a Flaw question, we could try and expose some assumptions here, but since this is an inference question, we can instead focus on this general inference and move to the answer choices.
20.
Which one of the following ███ ████████ ██ █████████ ████ ███ ███████ ██████
a
Soon, more graduates ███ ██████ ██ ██ █████████ ███ █████ █████
Incorrect. This is almost exactly the opposite of what the stimulus is saying. The stimulus says that there is likely to be a decrease, not an increase, in the number of college graduates, and never suggests that the number of jobs will decrease or become "fewer." In fact, by suggesting that employers are unaware of potential changes in the supply of college graduates, the stimulus implies the number of jobs will likely stay the same, at least in the short term.
b
Soon, there is ██████ ██ ██ █ ████████ ██ █████████ ██ ████ ███████ ██████████
Correct. The stimulus implies that the number of graduates in high-demand fields will likely decrease over the next decade and that employers are unprepared for this change. This suggests that there will be fewer graduates in those fields than there are jobs available.
Note that we aren't concluding that this will definitely happen — just that it will "likely" happen. Since our evidence is also about trends that will "likely" continue, this isn't a problem: it's valid to conclude a probable outcome based on premises about what is probable.
c
Employers are aware ██ ████████ ██████ ██ ████████ ███████ ██ ███████████████
Nothing in the stimulus suggests this. If anything, by saying that most employers aren't aware that the supply of graduates may no longer meet demand, and implying that the reason supply may no longer meet demand is that fewer undergraduates are enrolling in specific high-demand subjects, the stimulus suggests that employers aren't aware of changing trends, at least in these subjects.
d
Soon, fewer graduates ███ ██████ ██ ██ █████████ ███ █████ █████████ █████
Incorrect. This answer choice gets the "fewer graduates" part correct — if the trends mentioned in the stimulus continue, there will likely be a smaller pool of graduates to hire. But nothing in the stimulus suggests that there will be "fewer jobs." Indeed, the implication is that — because employers aren't aware of, or preparing for, the smaller supply of college graduates — the number of jobs will stay about the same at least for the immediate future.
e
Employers who are █████████████ █████ ██████ ██████ ████ ███████████ ███ ███████ ███ █████
We don't know anything about employers who are well-informed about future trends. We just know that most employers aren't. But we can't conclude anything about well-informed employers, since the stimulus contains no information about them.