Logical reasoning PrepTest 110 · Section 3 · Question 18

Incorrect. First this answer would suggest that the disability rate should be going down over time not up. Second this answer talks about "partial" restoration which suggests that there would still be a disability.

Incorrect. Without knowing the relative size of these groups, and who's eligible for the benefits (do government benefits go to anyone who isn't covered by private plans), this answer can't affect the argument.

Incorrect. This answer suggests that the size of each cluster of age groups should be increasing, but the stimulus talks about the percentage of each age group that's receiving disability payments, so the number of people in the groups is immaterial.

Incorrect. The size of the payments isn't noted as being related to how many people receive them, so this answer is out of scope.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Weaken

Stimulus Summary:
Generalization — Likelihood of being disabled increases with age
Phenomenon — In East Wendell, the proportion of the population receiving disability benefits shrinks as you look at older age groups
Explanation — The proportion of jobs offering disability benefits has recently greatly increased

Answer Anticipation:
Let's first discuss the question stem. We're told to find an answer that shows an explanation is, at best, incomplete. In other words, which answer points something out that makes us question the explanation in the stimulus. That's a fancy way of saying, "What weakens this explanation?" so this is a weaken question.

However it's not a generic Weaken question as it notes specifically that we should look for an answer that suggests the explanation is incomplete. That leaves open the possibility that the explanation could explain some of the phenomenon just not all of it. And since the phenomenon does have multiple elements we should anticipate an answer that points out why the explanation doesn't work for just one of them.

Those steps are between the different age groups. Based on the generalization it would be expected that as you look at older age groups the proportion of people with a disability would increase. However the opposite was found. Looking at the youngest age group they had the highest rate of people on disability. The middle group had a middle rate and the oldest group had the lowest rate. It's likely that the answer will highlight how the explanation explains only one of those drop—offs.

As far as what we can expect as far as the content is concerned there's a discrepancy in what the argument talks about. The generalization is about the disability rate but the data is about the proportion of people receiving disability benefits. So it's possible that there are a lot of people with disabilities who aren't receiving disability benefits. Since the answer focuses on employer—provided benefits the answer will likely highlight a way in which disability benefits would drop off at a certain point (maybe retirement?) which would explain one of the data sets but not the other.

Answer Explanation:
If employer plans cut out at 65 then people being on those plans can explain the drop from 4% to 2% between the under—65 and 65—74 age groups. However it doesn't explain the drop from the latter group to the 75+ group thus showing the employer explanation is at best a partial one.

Key Takeaway:
Always pay attention to a question stem that gives you more information than is standard. They generally won't ask a question that is outside the norm unless that specific phrasing is relevant to the question.