Statement: If it is easy to become a doctor, I don't want to be a doctor.…

2024

Statement:

If it is easy to become a doctor, I don't want to be a doctor.

Assumptions:

I. A candidate wants to be professional.

II. One wants to achieve a thing which is hard earned.

  1. A.

    Only I is implicit

  2. B.

    Only II is implicit

  3. C.

    Either I or II is implicit

  4. D.

    Neither I nor II is implicit

Attempted by 1 students.

Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: B

CONCEPT: In Statement-and-Assumption questions, an assumption is implicit only if the statement necessarily presupposes it -- meaning the statement would not logically hold without taking it for granted. An assumption is not implicit merely because it sounds plausible or is topically related; it must be something the speaker is unconsciously relying on to justify what is stated.

APPLICATION: The speaker says they would refuse to become a doctor if it were easy -- so their willingness to pursue medicine depends specifically on it being hard to achieve. This preference for a difficult path over an easy one presupposes that achieving something hard-earned matters to the speaker, which is exactly what one of the given assumptions states. The other assumption concerns wanting to be seen as a 'professional' -- an entirely separate quality that the statement never touches, since the speaker's stated concern is difficulty, not professional status.

CROSS-CHECK: Remove each assumption and test the statement's logic. Without the hard-earned-achievement assumption, the statement's if-easy-then-refuse structure has no motivating reason left, so that assumption must be presupposed. Without the professionalism assumption, the statement's logic is completely unaffected, confirming it is not needed.

Result: Only one of the two given assumptions is implicit -- the one about valuing a hard-earned achievement (Only II is implicit).

This is the standard reading tested by this question type: the assumption need not be the only conceivable motive, only a condition the statement necessarily takes for granted for the speaker's stated preference to hold, and valuing a hard-earned achievement is exactly that condition here.

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