Question

Difficulty: MediumPassage Assumptions and Underlying Premises

Read the passage given below:

To reverse the fiscal insolvency of small and mid-sized municipal corporations, the Urban Development Ministry has recommended replacing manual property tax surveys with drone-based aerial geospatial mapping. Proponents of this reform argue that deploying high-resolution aerial mapping will immediately boost local revenue collection across all pilot towns by detecting unrecorded building modifications and undeclared floor expansions. By automating spatial data collection and eliminating discretion in land use classification, municipalities can create an updated, tamper-proof property register. Consequently, civic authorities assert that this digital inventory will resolve municipal deficit issues and fund infrastructure expansion without requiring any revision of existing tax rates.

Statement: An implicit premise underlying the proponents' contention is that property tax under-reporting due to unrecorded structural modifications constitutes a primary cause of current municipal revenue deficits in these pilot towns.

Answer: Answer

Answer

True. The assumption that unrecorded structural modifications constitute a primary cause of revenue deficits is a necessary underlying premise for the passage's conclusion.
The statement is True because the author directly links the technological detection of unrecorded physical modifications to solving municipal revenue deficits. For this link to hold logically, the author must assume that unrecorded structural modifications are a major source of lost tax revenue. Negating this statement breaks the logical connection between the technology's capability and the financial outcome.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the main conclusion and the proposed mechanism in the passage.
The main conclusion is that drone-based mapping will boost revenue and resolve municipal deficits without altering tax rates, primarily by identifying unrecorded building modifications.
Isolating the argument structure (Premise → Mechanism → Conclusion) is the first step in identifying underlying assumptions.
2
Determine the unstated bridging assumption required to connect the mechanism to the conclusion.
For detecting unrecorded modifications to resolve the deficit, unrecorded modifications must account for a significant portion of the missing revenue.
An assumption is an unstated premise required for the premises to logically lead to the conclusion.
3
Apply the Negation Test to confirm logical necessity.
If we negate the statement ('unrecorded structural modifications do NOT constitute a primary cause of revenue deficits'), detecting them will fail to solve the fiscal insolvency, causing the author's conclusion to collapse. Therefore, the statement is true.
The Negation Test confirms whether a premise is strictly necessary for an argument's validity.

Key Concept

Identifying Underlying Assumptions in Reading Comprehension
Rate this question