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Difficulty: EasyStatement and Assumptions

Statement: "To improve overall employee productivity, the corporation has announced that it will provide free annual gym memberships to all its office staff."

Assumption I: Employee health and physical fitness have a positive impact on workplace productivity.
Assumption II: The corporation's overall profits will double by the end of the current financial year.

Which of the following accurately identifies the implicit assumption(s) in the statement?

  1. Only assumption I is implicitAnswer
  2. B
    Only assumption II is implicit
  3. C
    Both assumptions I and II are implicit
  4. D
    Neither assumption I nor II is implicit

Answer

The correct answer is that only assumption I is implicit.
The statement proposes providing gym memberships to achieve the goal of improved productivity. For this plan to be logical, the author must inherently assume that utilizing a gym (improving physical fitness) has a positive effect on an employee's productivity. Therefore, Assumption I is a valid implicit premise. Assumption II, however, makes a speculative leap regarding doubled profits, which is a future projection, not an unstated premise required to make the statement.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the main goal and action proposed in the statement.
Goal: Improve employee productivity. Action: Provide free gym memberships.
Identifying the intended cause-and-effect relationship is the first step in finding the unstated premise.
2
Evaluate Assumption I against the logic of the statement.
Assumption I links physical fitness (gained via gym memberships) to workplace productivity. This connection must exist for the author's plan to make sense.
An assumption is a missing logical link that must be true for the argument to hold.
3
Evaluate Assumption II against the logic of the statement.
Assumption II claims profits will double. This is a speculative future outcome, not a foundational belief required to simply offer the memberships for productivity.
Assumptions are unstated foundational premises, not extreme inferences or future predictions.

Key Concept

Identifying implicit premises required to logically bridge an action with its intended goal.
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Topics

Statement and Assumptions

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