PT133.S2.Q15 > Analytics

SECTION 1 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25

SECTION 2 · lr

SECTION 3 · lr

SECTION 4 · rc

PASSAGE 1

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7

PASSAGE 2

Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15

PASSAGE 3

Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21

PASSAGE 4

Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26 Question 27

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right

25% 136

145

75% 154

Question Stem Tags

Necessary assumption

Stimulus Tags

Eliminating options

Link assumption

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90%

166

159

153

156

157

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PrepTest 133 - Section 2 - Question 15

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