FINDING ASSUMPTIONS

Q1: Students of the late twentieth century regularly campaigned against nuclear weapons.
Students rarely demonstrate against nuclear weapons any more. Students must be less political
than they used to be
 Campaign agaisnt nuclear weapons is political
 Campaign agaisnt nuclear weapons is the only way make student be political
Key: Campaigning against nuclear weapons is an accurate measure of how politically-
minded a group is.
Q2: House prices rose quickly in the 1980s in many countries. There was a big slump in the
1990s and lots of house-buyers lost money. House prices are now rising very quickly again.
House-buyers can expect to lose a lot of money
 House prices increase make house-buyers have to spend more money to buy
Key: Whenever hoziseprices rise quickly, there will always be a slump in which
people lose money.
Q3: Children are costing parents more. They demand more of their parents' time, expecting to
be taken to activities after school, whereas in the past, parents' own intereststook priority.
Parents are under more pressure to provide clothes and shoes with expensive designer labels,
toys, trips and even more costly brands of breakfast cereal in order for their children to be
accepted by their peers. Advertising aimed at children should be banned in order to reduce this
excessive peer pressure.
 Most children demand more from their parents
 Children demand costly things because they are jealous of what their friends have
 Advertising aimed at children makes them feel peer pressure
 Advertisement often advertise costly things.
Key: Advertising aimed at children is to blame for peer pressure.
Q4: According to overture.com, more people search for information about the modern
scientist, Emeagwali, on the internet than any other scientist. The number of pages
downloaded are the equivalent to a bestselling book. Everybody must have heard about his
discoveries by now.
 Overture.com is trustworthy source to rate ranking of modern scientist searching.
 People can download page only one time.
 Something have lots of downloads is wide-known to people
 When people find information about a scientist, they also find his/her discoveries
Key: high number of searches on the internet means that 'everyone' must know about
the subject
Q5: Large companies move jobs to other countries where labour is less expensive. When
wages rise in one country, the companies look for cheaper options overseas, taking the work to
a new set of employees and making the former work-force redundant. Services such as call-
handling can be offered from thousands of miles away. Soon, there will be no jobs
left in the former high-wage economies
 Cheaper wages is the only factor companies care when hiring employees.
 One wages rise in one country, Large companies will move all work to cheaper-
employee country.
Key: All jobs could be moved to lower-wage economies
- only 'companies' offer jobs, but other organisations and individuals could also be
employers
Q6: Consumers are keen to eat more healthily. Information on packaging helps people to
identify what food contains so they can make more informed judgements about what they eat.
However, many people now refuse to eat food if the label refers to any E numbers. This
demonstrates that simply putting such information on the label is not necessarily helpful:
people need to know what it mean
 E numbers refer to bad ingredients/chemicals.
 When people eat more healthily, they want to know what is in the foods they eat.
 People do not find any information about ingredients/chemicals/substances on Internet
when they see them
Key: Some consumers do not understand the information they read abozrt E numbers.
Q1: It has long been the hope of many people that robots would revolutionise mundane chores
and hard labour such as construction work and housework. The first humanoid robot was
designed by Leonardo da Vinci as long ago as 1495. We have gone for hundreds of years with
little progress in gaining humanoid robots to assist around the house and construction site.
Labour-saving robots are just a dream. As there has been so little advance on humanoid robots
assisting with housework and construction, it will probably never be achieved.
C: humanoid robots assisting with housework and construction will probably never be
achieved.
 Something progresses little over long time will never be achieved
 Leonardo da Vinci was the first person making a humanoid robot.
Key:
(1) Just because a robot was designed a long time ago, there have been continuos
efforts since then to design a robot to deal with certain kinds of work. No evidence is
given to show that this is what Leonardo or inventors since him set out to do.
 (2) If something hasn't been done before a certain time, it never can be. In the case of
designing the robot described, the author doesn't prove this.
Q2: The Electoral Commissionfound that intimidation was used to influence how some voters
used their postal vote in the local elections. We should call an end to postal voting. This will
ensure a return to fair elections.
C: We should call an end to postal voting
 People who use postal vote can see vote of other postal-voted user
Key: (1) Elections were fair before postal voting was introduced. This is not proved in
the passage. For example, some people might not consider that elections are fair if those
who work away from home on the day of an election through no choice of their own,
Or those in the hospotal Or serving in the forces overseas, cannot vote.
Other assumptions made are: hasn't been established as true in the passage. It
might be argued, for example, that many people
(2) Intimidation is not used in any other kind of voting system. This is not established in
the passage. For example, intimidation could be used to make people surrender their
voting papers in other kinds of election.
(3) Postal voting could not be altered to reduce or remove intimidation.
Q3: People used plants as a method of curing illness for centuries before the advent of modern
medicines. The same plants are often used by the pharmaceutical industry as the basis for the
medicines we use even today. Medicines are now expensive to produce and purchase. It would
be better if we returned to traditional methods, using leaves and roots of plants rather than
mass-produced pharmaceuticals.
C; It would be better if we returned to traditional methods, using leaves and roots of plants
rather than mass-produced pharmaceuticals.
 The effectiveness of curing by traditional methods and using pharmaceuticals are the
same.
 Using plants is not expensive
 Key:

Q4: We should continue

to improve sanitation and diet in order to further increase our life expectancy. People in the
past had much shorter life expectancies than today. The life expectancy of pre-industrialised ,
societies tended to be an average of 30 years. Today,
people in developed countries can expect to live to over 70 years. Men, in particular, live much
longer now.
C: We should continue to improve sanitation and diet in order to further increase our life
expectancy.
 Sanitation and diet in order are only two factors increasing life expectancies.
 Industrialized societies provides things to help people live longer.
 Key:
Q5: Most new catering businesses collapse within the first year. Entrepreneurstend to
underestimate how long it takes to establish a client base. They run out of operatingfunds
before they have a chance to establish themselves in the market. Many new restaurant owners
give clients over-generous portions, often in a misguided attempt to lure them back to the
restaurant. Therefore, in order to keep their businesses afloat, new restaurant owners should
delay installing new kitchens until the restaurant is established.
C: new restaurant owners should delay installing new kitchens until the restaurant is
established.
 Client base help business not collapse.
 Installing new kitchens make businesses run out of operating funds.
Key:
Q6: Many people in the world are under-nourished or do not get enough to eat. More should
be done to reduce the world's population so that food supplies can go round.
C: More should be done to reduce the world's population so that food supplies can go round.
 Reduce the world’s population is the only way for everyone to get enough food.
Key: