assumption

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assumption

by Ankitaverma » Wed Dec 04, 2013 12:14 pm
Roland: The alarming fact is that 90 percent of the people in this country now report that they know someone who is unemployed.

Sharon: But a normal, moderate level of unemployment is 5 percent, with 1 out of 20 workers unemployed. So at any given time if a person knows approximately 50 workers, 1 or more will very likely be unemployed.

Sharon's argument relies on the assumption that
(A) normal levels of unemployment are rarely exceeded
(B) unemployment is not normally concentrated in geographically isolated segments of the population
(C) the number of people who each know someone who is unemployed is always higher than 90% of the population
(D) Roland is not consciously distorting the statistics he presents
(E) Knowledge that a personal acquaintance is unemployed generates more fear of losing one's job than does knowledge of unemployment statistics

Q/A-B
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by theunheardmelody » Wed Dec 04, 2013 12:23 pm
Good questions

The approach here is to find a statement choice, which when negated will render Sharon's statement to be moot.

We need to find a statement that explains how people will more than likely know more than one unemplyed people and it does not literally add up to reflect an increase in unemployement.

Only option B does this. The statement explains that unemployement is not specific to one location and there by the 90% population would most of the time know the same unemplyed person (intersecting sets of people).

All the other options do not give this point of view.

Hope this helps.

Thanks