Evaluating an argument

[arashyazdiha]

While political discourse and the media in the United States have focused on the rise of job outsourcing, few have mentioned the sharp fall of talent "insourcing," or the drop in enrollment of foreign-born graduate students since 2001, and its dire results. The decrease in such insourcing will hurt America's competitiveness in basic research and applied technology, with serious consequences for years to come. The de-internationalization of graduate programs across the country will also negatively affect the global outlook and experience of the American students remaining in those programs; they will not have the opportunity to learn about foreign cultures directly from members of those cultures. What distinguishes the decline of talent insourcing from the rise of job outsourcing is that the former can be easily rectified by a policy change of the United States government.

The answer to which of the following questions would be most useful in evaluating the author's claim regarding the impact of decreased insourcing in America?


A)What is the cost to reverse the trend of insourcing in America?
B)How does insourcing replace domestic jobs lost from outsourcing?
C)Since 2001, what has been the decrease in the number of foreign-born students in America?
D)What opportunities do American graduate students have to interact regularly with foreigners who are not students?
E)What effect would a government policy have on the number of foreign graduate students?

OA after some discussion

[GmatKiss]

IMO: D

[spoiler]Was left with A/D before choosing D[/spoiler]

[akhilsuhag]

IMO D

[VivianKerr]

Conclusion: Insourcing decline is WORSE than job outsourcing, can be rectified by gov't.

Evidence: Hurt competitiveness in research/applied tech, neg. affect global outlook & remaining students.

Assumption: These are all worse than the job outsourcing consequences; these consequences wouldn't also be caused by job outsourcing; the policy changes would prevent all neg. consequences.

Question Rephrase: What would help us evaluate the impact?

Prediction: Data to bolster one of the ways the author claimed it was impactful: (1)hurt competitiveness in research/applied tech, (2)neg. global outlook, or (3)long-term consequences of students not exposed to other cultures, etc.

IMO: D. It's the best match for our prediction. Everything else is too narrow. E is a tricky choice since it relates to the argument, but it does NOT specifically answer the question posed here, which limits the scope "regarding the IMPACT." The gov't part had to do with rectifying the situation, not on the actual consequences.

[arashyazdiha]

The OA is D