CR:International Policy Adviser

[suyash.tiwari]

International Policy Adviser: People over the age of 65 are underrepresented in the government of Country X. Because the government sets the country's policy priorities and passes new laws, the underrepresentation of people over the age of 65 results in a significant lack of consideration for issues important to this age group, such as pensions, age-related welfare, and employment discrimination; only an increase in the number of government officials will solve the problem.

Which of the following best describes an assumption implicit to the international policy adviser's argument?

1.A significant increase in the size of Country X's government would be required in order to increase the representation of people over the age of 65 in the government.
2.A significant increase in the representation of people over the age of 65 in Country X's government would result in an increase in the consideration for issues affecting people in this age group.
3.A significant increase in funding toward educating the government about issues affecting people over age 65 would result in more serious consideration for issues affecting people in this age group.
4.A significant increase in funding for adult education targeted to people over age 65 would result in an increase in the number of such people in Country X's government.
5.A significant increase in the representation of people over the age of 65 in Country X's government would have to precede any increase in the number of high-ranking government officials who are over the age of 65.

OA:2.

What's wrong with 1 ?

Is the size of government not equal to number of officials in Government ?

[tim]

size of a government is usually measured in terms of expenditures, not employees. furthermore, choice 1 does nothing to help the argument; even if it were true, you would still need the information in choice 2 to reach the conclusion..

[suyash.tiwari]

Hi Tim,
As a matter of fact, we would need both 1 and 2 , to connect the dots here.
The argument says that increasing the number of officials would solve the issue at hand.
Hence the assumption is:
1.Just increasing the number of officials will increase the number of people aged 65 or greater.
2.An increase in the number of officials aged 65 or greater will increase the consideration of problems affecting people of age 65 or greater.

1 above is stated in option 1 and 2 above is stated in option 2.
The only difference between 1 and 2 is that, 2, in some way, is stated in the argument, but 1 is unstated premise and hence should be the assumption.

Your post, above, is too short to explain the difference between the two of them.

Can someone please write a longer post explaining the difference clearly.

Thanks.

[saha.sanjib]

Hence the assumption is:
1.Just increasing the number of officials will increase the number of people aged 65 or greater.
2.An increase in the number of officials aged 65 or greater will increase the consideration of problems affecting people of age 65 or greater.

1 above is stated in option 1 and 2 above is stated in option 2.
The only difference between 1 and 2 is that, 2, in some way, is stated in the argument, but 1 is unstated premise and hence should be the assumption.

I approached the CR as stated below. The stated conclusion of the argument is

only an increase in the number of government officials will solve the problem.

So, as stated in the point 1, just increasing the number of officials does not mean that the government is going to recruit people over the age of 65 so that the problems of those age groups' are addressed.

But point 2 states clearly that if government is going to recruit people over the age group of 65 then these newly recruited people are going to raise the issues faced by them and draw the government attention. Hence 2. Does this help?
-Sanjib

[tim]

As a matter of fact, we would need both 1 and 2 , to connect the dots here.

This is not a matter of fact at all, for if it were then the problem would not have a unique answer. Please understand you will get more benefit by working to understand why the correct answer is correct and why the wrong answers are wrong than you will by questioning official answers. Remember, whatever the GMAT says is correct is what gets you points. Arguing with their answers will only lose you points on the test. I am happy to help you with this one if you are willing to learn, but the wording of your post suggests that you may be unwilling to accept any interpretation other than your own here. If that is the case, nothing any of us can do will help you..

[suyash.tiwari]

I've read innumerable times that understanding why the correct answer is correct is as important as understanding why the wrong answer is wrong.
I am just trying to do that. In GMAT, I will not be provided with an answer key. I will have to justify the validity of an answer choice by myself. If I am finding 1 here as a contender, I am going to find it in the GMAT as well. So, it will no doubt be of immense help, if I am able to convince myself that why 1 is wrong and why 2 is right.
Your post was so short in itself, that even after reading it multiple times, I was not able to contest within myself the validity of choice 2.
Same happened with another of my post. Your reply was so short, that it ended even before it started, and was neither convincing nor explanatory.
I feel that an unanswered post is better than a post that is answered in such a way that it helps none.

[tim]

please note that a short answer is most often better than a long and convoluted answer if it gets right to the point and explains exactly what needs to be explained. as i pointed out before, the problem with 1 is that it talks about the size of the government, which i explained is often measured in terms of expenditures. if that is not enough to see why 1 is wrong, i would suggest looking at the word "significant", which carries a connotation not necessary in the argument; there is no indication in the argument that there must be a *significant* increase in the size of government. note also that even if you don't accept the rationale that the size of government is based on expenditures, 1 is wrong because it does not answer the question. if you assume the size of the government is the number of officials, then 1 is no longer an implicit assumption as required by the problem stem, because increasing the number of government officials is explicit in the argument. i hope these explanations help; keep in mind on the GMAT you may need to use any of these lines of reasoning, so it's a good idea to familiarize yourself with all these techniques for getting rid of 1..