PT155 S2 Q2 ExplanationJavier: Government workers are paid

Answer choices, explained

1. A

   Out of Scope0% picked this

   the government could reduce spending by reducing the number of employees

   Out of Scope: reduce employees on payroll Both people would presumably agree to the truth of this common sense claim. If you reduce your payroll, you're almost invariably reducing your spending (all other things being equal). We wouldn't want to equate "reduce number of employees on payroll" with "hire private contractors to do the work currently being done by the government".

   0%
2. B

   Correct96% picked this

   the government would save money if it hired private contractors to perform services now performed

   Why this is right

   Javier would clearly say YES to this claim, since it is his second sentence. And Mykayla would seemingly say NO to this claim, since she is saying "currently, that's not the case. The government is not saving money by hiring private contractors. In fact, the government is spending more money on these private contractors than they would to pay government employees to perform comparable work.

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

   96%
3. C

   Too Strong: generally Unsupported Person 23% picked this

   government workers generally are paid higher hourly wages than comparable

   Javier would agree with this because it is his first sentence. But Mykayla never gets into the hourly wage comparison between government employees and comparable private sector ones. She only says that what we currently spend on private contracting (only a tiny percentage of the private sector is working for government contracts) is more than what it would cost for that work to be done by government employees. But we have no idea if she means that because she thinks that government workers, more than 50% of the time (generally), have a lower hourly wage.

   3%
4. D

   Too Strong: every0% picked this

   every service that is currently performed by government employees could be performed

   Neither author has committed to agreeing to the extreme claim that "every single thing that government employees can do can be performed by private contractors". Given that this claim is only about what's possible, they're likely to agree on this anyway. The disagreement isn't about what's possible, it's about what's more cost-effective.

   0%
5. E

   Out of Scope: total amount1% picked this

   the total amount of money that the government pays its employees annually is greater than the total amount that

   Javier hasn't made any comments that would tell us what he believes about comparing total amounts of money spent. He was only talking about comparing hourly wages. Mykayla has only talked about comparing the total amount of money the government would spend to have its employees do the work currently done by private contractors, to the total amount of money being paid to those private contractors. She hasn't talked about the total amount of money the government pays (all of) its employees annually.

   1%