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.
- A.
Only I is implicit
- B.
Only II is implicit
- C.
Either I or II is implicit
- 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.