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Editorial: Five years ago, Merryvale closed its municipal garbage-collection department and recieved several proposals for garbage-collection work from private contractors. Now the city pays less for garbage collection, the private contractor doing the work shows a profit, and residents say they are more satisifed with the garbage-collection service. This increase in effeciency constitutes a clear example of the benefits that result when competition motivates people to do high quality work at lower cost.
Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the editorials interpretation of the outcome of the change in Merryvale's garbage collection?
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| Five years ago, Merryvale closed its municipal garbage-collection department and recieved several proposals for garbage-collection work from private contractors. |
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| Now the city pays less for garbage collection, the private contractor doing the work shows a profit, and residents say they are more satisifed with the garbage-collection service. |
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| This increase in effeciency constitutes a clear example of the benefits that result when competition motivates people to do high quality work at lower cost. |
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The author starts with a specific case study (Merryvale's switch to private garbage collection), presents three pieces of positive evidence from that change, then jumps to a broad conclusion about competition's benefits. The flow moves from specific facts to a general principle.
Competition motivates people to do high quality work at lower cost, and Merryvale's garbage collection change proves this principle.
The author uses Merryvale as a single example to support a sweeping claim about competition. The logic assumes that because three good things happened in one case (lower costs + profits + satisfaction), this proves competition always works this way. It's a classic case of drawing a big conclusion from limited evidence.
Strengthen - We need to find information that would make the editorial's interpretation more believable. The editorial claims that competition led to better efficiency and quality at lower cost.
The editorial makes specific claims about cost (city pays less), profit (contractor shows profit), quality (residents more satisfied), and causation (competition caused these improvements).
To strengthen this argument, we need information that supports the idea that competition specifically caused these improvements. We should look for evidence that eliminates alternative explanations or shows that competition was indeed the driving force behind the positive outcomes.
This directly strengthens the editorial's interpretation. If the exact same people who worked for the municipal department are now working for the private contractor and achieving better results (lower costs, profits, higher satisfaction), this strongly supports the claim that competition was the driving force. It eliminates the alternative explanation that different, more skilled workers caused the improvement. The same people working more efficiently under competitive pressure is powerful evidence for the editorial's theory.
Changes in industrial garbage disposal work don't help us understand whether competition improved residential garbage collection. This focuses on industrial waste, which is different from the residential service mentioned in the editorial. Even if industrial disposal changed, this doesn't explain why the residential service got better, cheaper, and more profitable. This is irrelevant to the editorial's claim about competition motivating better performance.
This mentions what opponents predicted would happen (reduced wages and benefits) but doesn't tell us what actually happened or whether competition caused the improvements. Past predictions from opponents don't strengthen the current interpretation of why the positive outcomes occurred. We need evidence about actual causation, not historical opposition arguments.
If garbage can now be dumped much cheaper in a neighboring county, this provides an alternative explanation for the cost savings and efficiency gains. Rather than competition motivating better work, maybe the improvements came from access to cheaper disposal options. This actually weakens the editorial's interpretation by suggesting external factors, not competition, caused the benefits.
Other towns copying Merryvale's approach doesn't prove that competition caused Merryvale's success. Towns might follow examples for many reasons, even before knowing if they truly work. This doesn't provide evidence about what actually caused the improvements in Merryvale - it just shows other towns made similar decisions.