medium · GRE Verbal

Our company should adopt a four-day workweek. **A competitor that made the switch last year reported a fifteen percent rise in output per employee.** Skeptics note that the competitor also installed new production software at the same time, so the gain cannot be attributed to the schedule alone. **Even so, no firm that has moved to four days has ever reported a decline in productivity, which is the outcome we would most need to guard against.** In the argument, the two boldface portions play which of the following roles?

1. The first is the whole argument's own central main conclusion about the workweek; the second is a supporting premise that is deliberately offered in support of that stated conclusion.
2. The first is evidence for the recommendation whose force is later challenged; the second is a further consideration the argument offers to sustain the recommendation despite that challenge.
3. The first is a direct objection raised against the recommendation itself; the second is the whole argument's own reluctant concession that it goes on to make to that stated objection.
4. The first and the second boldface portions are together two entirely independent and separate objections that the argument itself raises directly against its own stated recommendation.
5. The first boldface portion plainly states the recommendation itself; the second then explains at some length exactly why that particular recommendation simply cannot ever succeed in practice.

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