Fact: the most successful economies have been and will continue to be those that train as many people as possible in the human skills required to research, to develop, and to apply new technology
Fact: Japan is a model for this sort of training effort
Fact: Europe as a whole is in a weaker position (shortage of skilled labor trained to use the new tech, and not enough scientists able to develop and apply the tech)
Fact: But even in Japan, there is a shortage of technically qualified people
Fact: and Japan, like most European countries, has far too many workers qualified to perform only menial tasks.
The question stem asks what can be inferred from these facts — in other words, what must be true.
There is no sufficient and necessary language in the stimulus, actually, so there is no problem of an improper reversal in answer choice (D). It must be true, according to the stimulus, that Europe needs to train more people in the new technologies to be economically more successful. We know Europe is in a weaker economic position than Japan and that, in part, this problem is because Europe has a shortage of skilled labor trained to use new technologies.
Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any additional questions.
marquishaMarch 21, 2017
Why is C incorrect? Is it because of the use of the term "uncommonly"?
MehranMarch 26, 2017
@marquisha (C) is incorrect because it is not directly supported by the information in the passage.
We know that Japan has trained as many people as possible in the human skills required to research, to develop, and to apply new technology. This is what the author attributes to the most successful economies, using Japan as an example, but then concedes that even in Japan there is still a shortage of technically qualified people.
We cannot say, however, that Japan's successful economy depends upon an uncommonly narrow base of highly skilled labor.
First, you are correct that this is not uncommon as all of Europe is plagued by a shortage of skilled labor trained to use new technologies.
Additionally, according to the passage, it is not this narrow base that makes Japan's economy successful, but rather Japan's efforts to train as many people as possible in these new technologies.
Hope that helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.
CeciSeptember 5, 2018
why is B incorrect? I 'm usually at a 50/50 when it comes to these question, and the majority of the time guess correctly because I focus on the little words. And this time I got it correct too but I'm curious to know why B isn't right.
Max-YoungquistSeptember 6, 2018
@Ceci the passage states that "the most successful economies are those that train as many people as possible..", and that "Japan is a model for this training effort." So even though Japan still has a shortage of skilled labor, they trained as many people as POSSIBLE. Since that is what the author attributes to an economy's success, Japan IS a good country to measure against. I hope that helps!
KathOctober 12, 2019
I am wondering 1. As many as possible = make the best effort to do, or have successfully trained as many as the industries requires? 2. Training effort = train as many as possible? 3. 'Model" means that Japan satisfied the requirements of the most successful economies (have trained as many needed or just make the most effort to do)? Japan is the number one or just someone haven done very well to set the model against? What I can be sure is, if Europe is worse than Japan, then Europe is not the best. 4. Even if Japan have more people qualify only menial works, it doesn't mean it lacks the qualified workers.
As time goes by, it seems that I payed too much attention to these since English is my second language. These confused me a lot. Hope someone could give me some hint. Thank you!
