Recruiter: Applicants who complete our firm’s optional problem-solving assessment are 40 percent more likely to receive job offers than those who do not. Therefore, requiring all applicants to take the assessment will allow us to identify more high-caliber candidates.
The recruiter’s conclusion depends on assuming that
- the assessment accurately measures qualities that the firm values in employees
- applicants who choose to take the optional assessment are similar to those who do not, aside from their decision to take it (correct answer)
- making the assessment mandatory will not discourage qualified applicants from applying
- the cost of administering the assessment to all applicants is justified by improvements in hiring outcomes
Explanation: When you encounter assumption questions in GMAT Critical Reasoning, you're looking for an unstated premise that the argument requires to be true. The recruiter observes that voluntary test-takers get 40% more job offers and concludes that mandatory testing will help identify more high-caliber candidates. The critical flaw here is that the recruiter treats voluntary participants as representative of all applicants. The argument assumes that the people who choose to take the optional assessment are essentially the same as those who don't, except for their decision about the test. If this weren't true—if voluntary test-takers were already stronger candidates who self-selected—then the 40% statistic wouldn't predict what happens with mandatory testing. Choice B correctly identifies this assumption. Without it, the argument falls apart because the higher success rate might simply reflect that better candidates choose to take the test, not that the test itself identifies quality. Choice A is tempting but goes too far—the argument could work even if the assessment measured the wrong things, as long as both groups were similar. Choice C addresses a potential practical problem but isn't required for the logical connection between premise and conclusion. Choice D focuses on cost-effectiveness, which isn't necessary for the recruiter's reasoning about identifying candidates. Watch for this pattern: when an argument extrapolates from a self-selected group to a broader population, look for assumptions about the similarity between those groups. Self-selection bias is a common logical flaw on the GMAT.