Self-study
Sociologist: A contention of many of my colleagues—that the large difference between the wages of the highest- and lowest-paid workers will inevitably become a source of social friction—is unfounded. ███████ ███ ████ ████████████ ██████ ████ ██ ████████ ███████ ███ ██ █████ ████ █████████ ████ ██ ████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ ████████ ██ ████████ ███████████ ██████ ████████ ██████ ███ ████ █████ ████ ████████████ ███ ████ ████ ██████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ████ █████████
Summary
The author concludes that the wage gap will prevent social friction instead of causing it. This is because social friction is caused by wages that either don’t increase or increase slowly, and the wage gap allows companies to easily hire new workers in response to changing conditions.
Notable Assumptions
This argument features an obvious linking assumption between companies being able to easily hire new workers and increasing wages. This allows us to make a strong prediction:
If workers can easily be hired in response to changing conditions, then wages will not stagnate or only increase slowly.
15.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███ █████████████ █████████
a
When companies can ████ ██████ ██ ████████ ██ ████████ ███████████ ████ ██████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ██ ██████ ██ ████ █████████
If we negate (A)—when companies hire freely, then wages do tend to be static or slow changing—then it destroys the gap between hiring and wages that we want to build. This negation would instead imply that the wage gap will cause social friction, so (A) is necessary to our argument.
b
People who expect █████ █████ ██ ████ █████ ███████████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ ███████ ███████████ ██ ███████
The argument is not concerned with people’s expectations of wage increases, and this answer choice also does not specify what their reactions would be. If people react negatively to the wage gap, then this answer choice might even hurt the argument.
c
A lack of █████████ ███████ ██████ █████████ ██ ██████ █████ ███████████
The premises already tell us that the wage gap allows companies to hire freely, so we don’t need any further explanation regarding their actions. A lack of caution or any other additional reason wouldn’t impact the argument, so (C) is not necessary.
d
A company's ability ██ ███████ ███████ ██ ████████ ██████████ ██████ ████████ ███ ████████
This might support the argument by showing that the wage gap can benefit workers, but it is too strong to be necessary. Even if there are some other instances where a company’s swift response to changes hurts workers, their ability to quickly hire could still lead to increased wages and reduced social friction.
e
Even relatively well-paid ███████ ███ ██████ ████████████ ████ █████ ████ ██ █████ █████ █████ ███████
Even if (E) is not true—well-paid workers don’t care about static wages—it could still be the case that other workers become upset, and that the wage gap prevents this unrest by promoting wage increases.