Critical Reasoning

It has been against the law for federal agencies and federal contractors to discriminate against a qualified job applicant because of a disability. Now that Congress has approved legislation to expand these existing provisions to cover private industry as well, the number of disabled people who are involuntarily unemployed will drop substantially.

The author of the above argument must be assuming which of the following?

(A) Many congressmen were reluctant to pass the new legislation to prevent discrimination against the disabled.
(B) Some private employers in the past deliberately chose not to hire qualified but disabled job applicants.
(C) The federal government currently employs more disabled people than does private industry.
(D) The approved legislation would stop discrimination against the disabled in the public and private sectors.
(E) Many disabled people voluntarily choose to remain unemployed.

IMO B

disability caused layoffs (Assumption should reject any other possible cause of layoffs or discrimination)

A) It is irrelevant that Many congressmen were reluctant, because Congress has already approved legislation.
B) qualification was not an alternative reason why disabled people were forced out of job. (Its a defender type assumption)
C) government currently employs more disabled people than does private industry is irrelevant.
D) extreme expectations
E) "disabled people voluntarily choose to remain unemployed " is a different group of people.We are concerned about disabled people who are involuntarily unemployed.
Also if we negate the statement , it would say :

disabled people INvoluntarily choose to remain unemployed --> supports the argument so Incorrect choice.

If the statement weakens an argument after it is negated, it is usually correct!

+1 for B

+1 for B.

OA is B

I have a small doubt here; if we negate option D - The approved legislation would not stop discrimination against the disabled in the public and private sectors - doesn't it render the conclusion invalid.

Conclusion - the number of disabled people who are involuntarily unemployed will drop substantially
Effect of negating Option D - since the legislation would not stop discrimination, industries may continue to not hire disabled people on the grounds of disability.

sourabh33 wrote:OA is B

I have a small doubt here; if we negate option D - The approved legislation would not stop discrimination against the disabled in the public and private sectors - doesn't it render the conclusion invalid.

Conclusion - the number of disabled people who are involuntarily unemployed will drop substantially
Effect of negating Option D - since the legislation would not stop discrimination, industries may continue to not hire disabled people on the grounds of disability.

You are correct except that you missed a small point. The conclusion is regarding private sector.
Kindly find the word "existing". Public sector already has such provisions

Cool HSPA!

But still, I am not 100% convinced.

My contention - The existing provisions legislations for public industries, when expanded to private industry may not be effective. For conclusion to be valid, the legislation apart from being applicable needs to be effective in stopping discrimination. When we negate option D, it could refer that existing provisions are applicable but they are not able to stop discrimination.

I might be reading two much between the lines and assuming more than what is required

Hey Sourabh,

Thanks for the PM - you know, I think you do have a pretty good point about D, but I think you can look at D in two ways.

1) The approved legislation will stop (all) discrimination

2) The approved legislation will stop (some) discrimination

If it's the first one, that's unnecessary...as long as it stops some discrimination it will make a sizable dent. So with that interpretation, D is incorrect.

If it's the second one, negated that means that the approved laws won't help at all, and then you're dead on...then it's a worthless piece of legislation that won't impact the conclusion.

I don't think you can say the same (multiple interpretations) for B, so when I was looking at this question B jumped out as me as though it were painted in red. Without it, we know that the law won't do anything to help the situation, so B is undebatable. D...I think you can debate the true intent of it.

So in terms of learning from this question, you've devoured it - great job! If I saw it on the test, I'd be inclined to pick B confidently just knowing that there's no doubt but perhaps some doubt with D. But I'm not sure that an official question could leave D as is, anyway, so you probably won't have to make that "one answer works, but the other is clearly better" decision...

sourabh33 wrote:Cool HSPA!

But still, I am not 100% convinced.

My contention - The existing provisions legislations for public industries, when expanded to private industry may not be effective. For conclusion to be valid, the legislation apart from being applicable needs to be effective in stopping discrimination. When we negate option D, it could refer that existing provisions are applicable but they are not able to stop discrimination.

I might be reading two much between the lines and assuming more than what is required

The argument does not depend on (D) because "stopping discrimination" is a much broader, more extreme, idea than a law working to limit discrimination while employers make hiring decisions. This argument depends on the latter but not the former.

Even if we were to replace "stop discrimination" with "stop discriminatory hiring practices" it would still be wrong because the author did not argue that the law would bring such discrimination to a halt; only that the number of out-of-work people looking for work will "drop substantially".

In other words, in order for (D) to be correct, it would have to read something like this:

(D) The approved legislation would significantly limit discriminatory hiring practices against the disabled in the public and private sectors.

(On the other hand, (B) can be rephrased as "there is some preexisting discrimination (in hiring practices)." The argument depends on this premise because if there aren't any disrciminatory hiring practices going on, then the new law--noble though it is--wouldn't actually effect or change anything.)


***

Here's a tip, which, if one knew it, would increase the likelihood of one's choosing (B) over (D):

in necessary assumption questions, be partial to choices that use cautious language and wary of choices that use extreme language.

For exmaple, in this question, the correct answer, (B), uses "some," which is cautious language. And (D) uses "stop," which is extreme when one considers that "limit," "minimize," and "decrease" would be more cautious usage.

The reason this tactic works is simple:

an assumption is something an argument depends on

and

the more extreme an idea, the less likely an argument will depend on it.