Many economists claim that financial rewards provide

Answer choices

1. A

   So Weak3% picked this

   Even high wages do not enable people to obtain all the

   Even X doesn't let me get every single thing I desire. Big whoop. None of us think that there's something out there that would let us get every single good we desire, so there's it's not changing anyone's mind about X. Also, this basically goes the opposite direction of what we're trying to do: argue that financial rewards are the #1 thing that people care about when choosing a job.

   3%
2. B

   Irrelevant50% picked this

   In many surveys, people say that they would prefer a high-wage job to an otherwise identical

   This establishes that people have a positive attitude towards higher salaries: they'd rather have it than not have it. But the argument isn't about whether you'd rather have a higher salary than not have it. It's about comparing the relative importance of salary to things like coworkers, flexible schedule, a boss you respect, vacation and parental leave policies, etc. This answer doesn't address that conversation at all because it's comparing two otherwise identical jobs. The only thing different is higher salary, so of course we'd take the higher salary. There are no trade-offs. Say that in selecting a law school, the most important thing to you was school ranking. Financial aid mattered, but not as much. It would be true to say that "you'd prefer to get lots of financial aid at school X than you would to get a lower amount of financial aid at school X." That doesn't mean financial aid is your #1 concern. It just says you'd rather have it than not have it, all other things being equal.

   50%
3. C

   Correct43% picked this

   Jobs that pay the same salary often vary considerably in their

   Why this is right

   This speaks to the term shift between the surveys about "salary" and the conclusion about "financial rewards". It allows us to argue, "The economists are right that financial rewards are the #1 thing people care about when choosing a job. True, salary is not #1, but the overall compensation package, including health benefits, paid leave, stock options, and salary are the #1 thing people care about."

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

   43%
4. D

   Too Weak2% picked this

   Many people enjoy the challenge of a difficult job, as long as they feel that

   This isn't comparative at all, and this whole argument is about comparing the relative importance of things. We don't care that people enjoy challenging work. We care about whether they value challenging work more / less than they value financial rewards. Also "many" is a very weak quantity that essentially means "at least 5 or 10", so this isn't telling us much about people broadly.

   2%
5. E

   Too Weak / Irrelevant1% picked this

   Some people are not aware that jobs with high salaries typically leave very little

   This, like (D), is weak and non-comparative. It says "at least one person doesn't know that high-paying jobs usually don't leave you with as much disposable time". There's no way that learning about this one dude will help us argue that "financial rewards generally ARE the #1 thing people care about".

   1%