Logical Reasoning

PT118 · S3 · Q22 In 1988 the government of Country X

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In 1988 the government of Country X began using a new computer program to determine the number of people employed in that country.

Statements

In order to count how many people were employed, Country X would count the number of paychecks per pay period (probably every two weeks) by employers.

When the government had gotten through the first quarter (3 months) of using this new method, it said that there was a large increase in the number of people employed, compared to the previous quarter when they weren't using that method.

Stem

During this 1st quarter, employers issued separate paychecks for base pay, overtime pay, and bonuses/commissions.

Evaluate

It's a little confusing for me to understand how the government is even capable of comparing 1st quarter of 1988 to the last quarter of 1987, since the job-counting thing started in 1988.

But I guess we're meant to assume that the government has some other way of estimating employment, prior to beginning this computer program method in 1988.

The question stem seems to be baiting us into thinking that

But it's hard to say this is a must be true inference. We don't know anything about the old method of how they estimated jobs.

Also, it's possible that the computer program is in fact over-counting jobs (because it thinks that each paycheck is a separate person employed), but still possible that in addition to that there was an increase in people employed during the 1st quarter.

Goal

We just have to be careful that we pick some safe wording. It feels like we're being baited into using the crumbs they've provided us with to make a Most Supported inference, but this is "properly concluded", so we need to feel rock solid on what we're picking.

22.

Which one of the following can be properly concluded from the information above, together with the fact that in the first quarter for which the program was used, some employers in X issued separate paychecks for the regular hours an employee worked, for the employee’s overtime, and for bonuses and commissions?

  1. The government’s estimate of growth

    Unknown Comparison

    We have no information about the government's estimation method from before, so there's no way to derive a comparison about whether the computer method is more / less / equally accurate.

    6% picked this

  2. The people who designed the

    Out of Scope: Awareness

    We can't derive anything about the awareness of the designers of the new computer program. Even though we've "spotted" a potential error with this methodology, that doesn't mean that the designers were oblivious to it. They may have considered it an allowable margin of error. Designer 1: "What about the fact that some people get multiple paychecks, so the system will treat that as multiple jobs?" Designer 2: "Yeahhhh. No system is perfect. That phenomenon is rare enough that it'll only negligibly distort the final number. It's just an estimate after all." Designer 1: "Sounds good. What are you thinking for lunch?" Designer 2: "I'm thinkin' Arby's."

    17% picked this

  3. The government had not reported

    Unknown Comparison

    We know practically nothing about the last quarter of 1987. We know that 1st quarter of 1988 was thought to be an increase, but the 4th quarter of 1987 may have been thought to be an increase over 3rd quarter of 1987. Maybe Country X was recovering from a nasty pandemic-induced Depression, so for several quarters in a row, there appeared to be strong growth in number of people employed.

    4% picked this

  4. Correct

    The government overestimated the total

    Why this is right

    What's lovable about this is that it doesn't make a comparison to 4th quarter of 1987, which is a time period we know nothing about. It just states the evident flaw in this counting system --- they use total number paychecks to estimate total number of employed workers. However, since some workers will receive 2 or 3 paychecks in a given pay period, the system is going to think that there are more employed workers than there are. Another way to say it: Since every employee gets at least one paycheck per pay period, and some employees get more than one (if they had overtime / bonus / commission), then there will be more paychecks than employees. And the computer program estimates by thinking: # of paychecks = # of employees

    Skill tested: Must be True · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    71% picked this

  5. Contrary to the claims of

    Too Strong: No Growth

    Even though we know the computer program is overcounting, there could still be actual job growth happening in the 1st quarter. We can't rule out the possibility of more people being employed, just because we know the computer program is overcounting.

    2% picked this

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