PrepTest 17 - Section 1 - Question 19 | Explanation & Discussion

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Support Because a large disparity in pay between the public and private sectors has developed in recent years, many experienced and extremely capable government administrators have quit their posts and taken positions in private-sector management. ██████████ ████ ██ ████ ██ █████████ █████ ███████ ██████████████ ██ ███████ ████████ ██ █ █████ ██████████ ██ █████ ██ ███ ███████ ███████ ██ ████ ████ ███ ███████████ ██ ██████ ████████ ████ ██ █████████

Argument Summary

The author points out that because of a large pay disparity between the public and private sectors, many capable government administrators have quit their jobs and taken up roles in the private sector. The author predicts that if the government raises salaries so that they are comparable to private-sector salaries, the government will be able to "recapture" these administrators. Thus, the author concludes, the "functioning of public agencies will be improved."

19.

The position taken above presupposes █████ ███ ██ ███ ██████████

Question Type

Necessary assumption

There are a few notable assumptions in this argument. Notice the big assumption between the premise in the first sentence and the prediction/intermediate conclusion in the second sentence. Just because the initial reason for these administrators switching to the private sector was the higher salary doesn't necessarily mean that raising salaries to a "comparable" level will bring them back. Maybe these administrators now prefer working in the private sector for some other reason: work environment, opportunity for promotions, etc. The argument assumes this is not the case.

The author also makes a big assumption in stating that "recapturing" these administrators will "improve" the functioning of public agencies. Just because some "experienced and extremely capable" administrators have left doesn't necessarily mean the functioning of these agencies has declined, or that recapturing these administrators will necessarily improve the agencies' functioning. Maybe these agencies were overstaffed to begin with, and there are plenty of capable people left behind who are still working there. Or maybe the agencies are so structurally flawed that their functioning will not improve, regardless of the quality of their employees. The argument also assumes these scenarios are not the case.

Experience gained from ██████████████ ██████████ ████ ██ ████ ████████ ██ ██████████ ███████████████

Incorrect. The argument assumes these administrators were valuable to begin with because they were already capable and experienced before switching to the private sector. The argument doesn't require these administrators to have gained even more valuable experience from their time in the private sector. Negating (A) doesn't destroy the argument.

The most important ██████ ███████████ ███ ████ ██████████ ████████ ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ██████████ ███ ██████████████ █████

Incorrect. If we negate (B), we just get something like, "The amount of experience administrators have is not the most important factor determining how well government agencies function." But this still leaves room for experience to be one important factor in how well government agencies function, which is all the argument requires. So (B) isn't a necessary assumption

14%

Unless government action ██ ██████ ███ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██████████ ██████████████ ███ ██████████████ ██████████ ████ ████████ ██ █████████

Incorrect. The argument doesn't assume that the disparity will keep growing, just that it already exists and needs to be corrected to bring back government administrators from the private sector. So negating (C) wouldn't destroy the argument

People who moved ████ ████ ██ ██████████ ██████████████ ██ ██████████████ ██████████ █████ ██████ ██ ██████ ███████ ██████

Correct. This is one of the assumptions we identified above: that if salaries were brought to a comparable level, former government administrators in the private sector would choose to move back. If we negate (D) to say that they would not choose to change careers again, then the author's whole argument falls apart

73%

If the disparity ██ ███ ███████ ██████████ ██████████████ ███ ██████████████ ██████████ ██████████ ██████████████ ████ ████ ██ ███ ██████ ██████ ██ █████ ████████

Incorrect. This is a bizarre answer choice. The "disparity" we have already been talking about is in favor of the private sector: i.e., the disparity means that private sector salaries are higher than government salaries. For that disparity to increase suggests that private sector salaries would get even higher relative to government salaries. Nothing in the argument suggests that such a change would cause administrators to move to the public sector: in fact, the argument suggests the opposite.

PrepTest 17 - Section 1 - Question 19

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