A comparison has been made between fast food restaurants and factories. This is not as unrealistic as it might first appear. Fast food is mass-produced, as heavily processed as any other factory product, and restaurant workers have jobs which are just as routine and boring as those in manufacturing. So not only does fast food taste the same everywhere, but all workers involved are on low wages and have little power to improve their conditions.
Which one of the following best expresses the conclusion of this argument?
A. Workers who do routine and boring jobs are often poorly paid.
B. Mass production in factories leads to poor working conditions.
C. It is not unrealistic to compare fast food restaurants with factories.
D. All fast food tastes the same because it is heavily processed.
E. Working in a fast food restaurant is no different from working in a factory.
Read the answer and eliminate the outliers
(easiest to eliminate contradictory conclusions)
Using the underlined evidence and examples, prove each conclusion. Ask yourself “is this another piece of evidence? Or is this proved and strengthened by what’s in the text?”
Reading through the text, the main argument is on the comparisons between fast food workers and factory workers. In the text, there is a short sentence that can actually be a giveaway of the conclusion: “This is not as unrealistic as it might first appear”. This is alluding to how fast food restaurants and factories have a lot in common and therefore are comparable. The author then backs this up with supporting evidence for reasons why they are similar. Keeping this in mind, let’s analyze our answers.
A. This is not the conclusion, it is something the author uses as evidence to help make his comparison between the two jobs, saying that they are almost equally bad. Therefore this cannot be the answer.
B. There is correlation here but not causation. The text talks about how there is mass production and infers that they are poor working conditions (says that they are on little wages, labour is routine and boring, little power to improve conditions) but the author does not explicitly say that mass production is the cause of poor working conditions or vice versa. Therefore this cannot be the answer.
C. This is a statement that encompasses all the ideas and topics used by the author and has a lot of strong supporting evidence. The giveaway can be found in the second sentence as previously mentioned. Therefore C is the right answer.
D. This again is not a conclusion, it is a piece of evidence. The text is using this as an example of how fast food is as processed and mass produced as factory products. This is not a conclusion on its own because it is proving something else (how these two jobs and working environments are similar). Therefore this cannot be the answer.
E. This is taking the real conclusion too far. The text is talking about how these two areas are COMPARABLE, this does not mean that they are identical. The working conditions are the same, the overall idea of mass production is the same, but they are different environments and therefore require different skills and abilities. Therefore this cannot be the correct answer.