A statement is followed by two assumptions 1 and 2. You have to consider the…
2025
A statement is followed by two assumptions 1 and 2. You have to consider the statements to be true, even if they seem to be at variance from commonly known facts. You have to pick the assumption that can definitely be drawn from the given statement and indicate your answer accordingly.
Statement: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition scored a landslide victory at the polls, boosted by his campaign promises to invest more heavily in education and childcare, aimed partly at encouraging more women to join the workforce.
Assumptions:
1. The number of women workers in Japan are lesser than men.
2. Women are reluctant to join the workforce because of education and childcare.
- A.
1
- B.
2
- C.
Either 1 or 2
- D.
Neither 1 nor 2
Attempted by 1 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
In a Statement-Assumption question, an assumption is an unstated premise the speaker necessarily takes for granted for the statement to hold or make sense. To count as definitely drawn, it must be implicit (not stated outright), necessary for the statement's claim or action to be logically coherent, and not dependent on outside factual knowledge. The standard test: negate the assumption; if the statement's action no longer makes sense, the assumption is implicit and holds; if the statement is unaffected, it does not.
The first assumption claims the number of women workers in Japan is lesser than men. The statement never states or compares actual worker headcounts by gender, so there is no basis to assume this specific numeric relationship; negating it (women workers are not fewer than men) does not affect the sense of the statement at all, so this assumption fails the necessity test.
The second assumption claims women are reluctant to join the workforce because of education and childcare concerns. The statement says the ruling coalition's investment in education and childcare was aimed partly at encouraging more women to join the workforce. For that aim to make sense, the coalition must be taking for granted that a lack of adequate education and childcare support was itself discouraging women from working — exactly what this assumption states.
Negating the second assumption (women are not reluctant because of education and childcare) would make the stated policy aim meaningless: investing in education and childcare would then have no logical connection to encouraging women's workforce participation. So this assumption must be taken for granted.
Applying the same negation test to both assumptions confirms only the second one is necessary for the statement to hold, so it alone is validly drawn — not either, not neither, and not the first assumption alone.
Therefore, only the second assumption can definitely be drawn from the statement.