Match each logical argument on the left with the implicit necessary assumption on the right upon which its conclusion depends.
- Economist: Implementing automated inventory scanning across regional fulfillment centers reduces human clerical logging errors by ninety percent. Therefore, logistics firms that adopt automated scanning across all their facilities will experience a net decrease in overall operating expenditures.The financial expenditures required to deploy and maintain automated scanning systems do not exceed the cost savings gained from the reduction in logging errors.
- Epigrapher: The commemorative inscription recently excavated at a lowland maritime settlement features specialized phonetic glyphs documented exclusively in highland trade records from the late Bronze Age. Consequently, highland merchants must have maintained direct administrative contact with lowland coastal settlements during that era.The specialized phonetic glyphs found in the lowland settlement were not transmitted exclusively through intermediary third-party trade groups.
- Planetary Scientist: Mineral analysis of strata within the northern polar basin of Mars reveals alternating laminations of perchlorate salts and hydrated clays, a sequence that precipitates only in sustained seasonal meltwater. Because no non-aqueous process produces this configuration, liquid water must have existed on the Martian surface after the close of the Noachian epoch.The geological strata displaying the alternating mineral laminations were formed after the close of the Noachian epoch.
Answer
Each argument matches with the unstated presupposition required for its conclusion to stand under the Negation Test: the logistics argument requires that automation costs do not eclipse error-reduction savings; the epigraphical argument requires that the script was not transmitted solely through third parties; and the planetary science argument requires that the sampled mineral layers were deposited during the post-Noachian epoch.
For each pair, the right-hand statement represents a foundational requirement without which the author's inference fails. For the automated scanning argument, if implementation costs equal or outweigh clerical savings, net operating costs will not decrease. For the epigraphic argument, if intermediaries exclusively carried the glyphs, direct administrative contact is unproven. For the planetary argument, if the mineral layers date to the Noachian epoch or earlier, the presence of meltwater provides no evidence for water existing after that epoch.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key Concept
Necessary Assumption identification via the Negation Test