Logical reasoning PrepTest 140 · Section 3 · Question 10

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Must Be True

Stimulus Summary:
Subcontract → Lose some control over quality
We subcontract
Our subcontractors maintain complete control over quality

Answer Anticipation:
The President's statements start with a conditional rule about subcontracting, and then it discusses two companies with enough specificity to apply that rule.

The President's company subcontracts out some manufacturing, so they lose some control over quality. The subcontractors maintain complete control over quality—in other words, they don't lose some control over quality. According to the contrapositive of the rule, that means that these subcontractors don't further subcontract out work. One of these two conclusions should be the correct answer.

Answer Explanation:
This answer matches our anticipation stating that the company's subcontractors don't contract out further since they maintain complete control over quality. It would be easy to get thrown off by the "it does not allow" language, so if you deferred on this answer choice until reviewing the others, that's understandable. However, stating that the company will "only" contract with subcontractors who maintain complete control over quality is the same as saying they don't allow for contractors that subcontract work out.

Key Takeaway:
The correct answer here has some language that would be easy to throw you off. When an answer is in the right area but you're not 100% certain on the details, defer on it and come back! (A) is a lot easier to select as the correct answer after eliminating the others for being out of scope.

Incorrect. There's no discussion of being disappointed by the quality, or any feelings towards that quality, so this answer is out of scope.

Incorrect. The President is ceding some control by subcontracting work out, so stating that she insists on having as much control "as possible" isn't necessarily true.

Incorrect. There's no discussion of consumers in the stimulus, making this answer choice out of scope.

Incorrect. The stimulus only discusses control over quality, not the quality itself. It's possible that products are subcontracted out specifically when another company can create products of higher quality than the contracting company!