The chairperson of Acme Corporation

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong: all3% picked this

   All Acme employees can afford housing within a 30-minute commute

   The author certainly hasn't said anything that commits her to the extreme idea that every single ACME employee (the janitor, the intern, the part-timer) can afford housing within a 30-minute commute of Milltown. The negation of this answer, "at least one current employees can't afford housing within 30-minutes of Milltown" wouldn't hurt the conclusion in the slightest, because the conclusion is about Future World when the company is in Ocean View. The author isn't making any assumptions about Present World when the company is in Milltown.

   3%
2. B

   Out of Scope: reason for moving1% picked this

   The chairperson of Acme has good financial reasons for wanting to move the company

   The author isn't assuming anything about why Acme is choosing to move. This argument is purely about the future commute of most ACME employees. The potential reason that ACME moved has nothing to do with the typical commute time. The negation of this answer, "The chairperson does not have good financial reasons for wanting to move" doesn't hurt the conclusion at all, because it has nothing to do with the commute times of most employees once ACME is in Ocean View.

   1%
3. C

   Out of Scope1% picked this

   None of Acme's employees except the chairperson are in favor of moving the company

   Out of Scope: in favor of moving The author isn't assuming anything about what proportion of employees are in favor of the move. She is only assuming that a lot of the current employees will continue to work for ACME even once they move (whether they were in favor of the move or not). The negation, "at least one employee besides the chairperson was in favor of moving" doesn't hurt in the slightest.

   1%
4. D

   Out of Scope: current commute29% picked this

   Currently, most Acme employees have a commute of less than

   This argument doesn't care in the slightest whether the current commute is 1 minute or 6 hours. No matter what the current commutes are, they will be different once ACME moves to Ocean View, and the author is only claiming something about what will be true once they move to Ocean View.

   29%
5. E

   Correct66% picked this

   Acme's move to Ocean View will not be accompanied by a significant pay raise

   Why this is right

   This answer comes from a surprising angle, so we better be aware that on Necessary Assumption, it's super lovable to see an answer ruling-out an idea with the word "not". We stop and negate these, because they're so frequently correct and because they are usually offering an idea we didn't necessarily predict. The negation here says, "ACME's move to Ocean View will be accompanied by a significant pay raise for Acme employees". Does that hurt the argument? Does that help us argue that most Acme employees will have a commute of less than 30 minutes? Yeah, that weakens somewhat. The author was saying that most Acme employees can't afford housing within a 30 minute commute. They can't currently afford housing near Ocean View. But if the company is giving the employees a huge pay raise, knowing that the cost of living is so much higher in Ocean View, then once the company has moved, these employees may have changed from people who cannot afford to live near Ocean View into people who can afford to live near there. Weakening arguments based on Predictions often involves pointing out that "something else will be different in that Future World, author, and that changing factor might mess up your conclusion". Overall, this is an unusual answer because the negation weakens to a decent degree, but not to the usual strong degree that we expect when we negate the correct answer. Still, if we go by the standard of, "Which answer, when negated, most weakens", we'll never pick the wrong answer on Necessary Assumption.

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

   66%