With reference to the passage, which of the following are factors that can be seen to be determining the movement of Africans to other countries to seek work ? 1. Younger populations in developing countries like the Philippines and Mexico 2. Only about 20 per cent of the required jobs being available within African nations 3. Fierce backlash from Western countries given the increasing immigration load Select the answer using the codes given below :

Correct — D, (d) 2 only.

The passage names its causes explicitly and in order. 'Demography is one cause.' 'Another cause is economics.' Everything the item offers has to be checked against those two paragraphs, and against nothing else, because the Directions confine the answer to the passage's contents.

Statement 2 is correct. The economics paragraph ends: 'African countries create only around a fifth of the number of formal jobs required to absorb their expanding workforce.' A fifth is twenty per cent, and 'create only around a fifth of the jobs required' is what statement 2 restates as 'only about 20 per cent of the required jobs being available'. This is the one statement in the item that changes the passage's words without changing its claim.

Statement 1 is not correct, and it is the reverse of the passage. The demography paragraph says that emerging countries associated with exporting people, 'such as Mexico and the Philippines, are also getting older and richer - meaning smaller shares of their populations will, in future, wish to emigrate in search of work'. The passage's point about those two countries is that they are ageing, not that they are young; and the consequence it draws is that fewer of their people will move, not more. Statement 1 takes the two named countries and attaches to them the opposite demographic fact.

Statement 3 is not correct either, and it fails on a different axis. The backlash is real in the passage - 'the fierce backlash against ______ across the West' - but the passage introduces it as something African movement will survive, not as something that drives Africans to seek work abroad. A force pushing against a movement is not a factor determining it. Statement 2 therefore stands alone, and the answer is option (d).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)1 and 2 — This keeps the correct statement 2 and adds the one statement that the passage contradicts by name. The passage cites Mexico and the Philippines precisely because they are getting older and richer, and it draws from that the conclusion that 'smaller shares of their populations will, in future, wish to emigrate in search of work'. Statement 1 reads those same two countries as having younger populations, which inverts both the fact and the inference the passage builds on it. The ageing of the traditional sending countries is, in the passage's argument, a reason African movement grows in relative importance - not a description of those countries.
• (b)2 and 3 — This option keeps statement 2 and adds the backlash. The backlash appears in the passage, which is what makes the option attractive, but it appears in a sentence about what will not stop African movement rather than in either of the two paragraphs the passage labels as causes. The item asks for factors 'determining the movement of Africans to other countries to seek work', and Western resistance determines nothing about why a worker leaves Lagos; it is an obstacle encountered on arrival. Statement 3 also adds a premise of its own - an 'increasing immigration load' - which the passage never states.
• (c)1 and 3 — This is the only option that drops statement 2, which is the item's single verifiable restatement, and it keeps both of the statements the passage refuses. Statement 1 reverses what the passage says about Mexico and the Philippines, and statement 3 promotes a counter-force into a cause. An option built entirely out of the two statements a careful reader has already struck out is the one to be surest about, and its position on the page - as the third label rather than the second, unlike the previous item on this page - is the only thing that makes it easy to pick by accident.

This item tests causal reading: separating the forces an author says are driving something from the forces the author says are pushing back against it, and from facts the author states about a third party.

The passage is unusually helpful about its own structure. It signals its causes with two flat sentences - 'Demography is one cause' and 'Another cause is economics' - and everything that belongs to the answer sits under one of those two headings. The demographic cause has three parts: the developed world's shrinking working-age population, the ageing and enrichment of the traditional sending countries, and Africa's own working-age population rising by around 700 million by 2050. The economic cause has two: African incomes have reached the level at which people are poor enough to want to leave and rich enough to afford the journey, and formal job creation runs at about a fifth of what the growing workforce needs.

What lies outside those two headings is the backlash, and the passage's treatment of it is a concession, not a cause. Recognising the difference matters beyond this item: examiners routinely build a wrong statement by lifting a real element of the passage and re-labelling it - a consequence offered as a cause, an obstacle offered as a driver, a fact about one country transferred to another.

The third technique on show is inversion. Statement 1 keeps the passage's two named countries and flips the fact attached to them, which is the hardest kind of wrong statement to catch, because the recognisable proper nouns make the whole statement feel familiar.

Key facts

• The passage names exactly two causes and labels them: 'Demography is one cause' and 'Another cause is economics'; every correct factor in this item must sit under one of those two headings.
• On job creation the passage says African countries 'create only around a fifth of the number of formal jobs required to absorb their expanding workforce' - a fifth being twenty per cent, which is what statement 2 restates.
• On Mexico and the Philippines the passage says they 'are also getting older and richer', with the consequence that smaller shares of their people will wish to emigrate for work - the opposite of statement 1's 'younger populations'.
• The passage's demographic case rests on three movements at once: falling working-age numbers in the developed world, ageing in the traditional sending countries, and a rise of around 700 million in Africa's working-age population by 2050.
• The backlash across the West appears in the passage as something the movement will outlast, which places it among the obstacles rather than among the causes the item asks for.

Common traps

• Remembering the passage's vivid opening figures and its backlash, and missing the two quiet paragraphs that actually name the causes.
• Reading Mexico and the Philippines as young, high-emigration countries because that is their reputation, when the passage cites them for ageing and rising incomes.
• Promoting the Western backlash to a cause because it is prominent in the passage; the passage places it among the things the movement will outlast.
• Accepting statement 3's added premise of an 'increasing immigration load', a phrase and a claim the passage never makes.
• Carrying the previous item's option positions across to this one: the second and third labels on this item are the reverse of the second and third on the item above it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  A passage reads: 'Two forces explain the shift. First, port costs at home have fallen sharply. Second, buyers abroad now pay on delivery. Domestic freight rates have risen, though exporters have absorbed most of the increase.' With reference to the passage, which of the following are factors driving the shift ? 1. Lower port costs at home 2. Payment on delivery by foreign buyers 3. Rising domestic freight rates

  • (a)1 and 2
  • (b)2 and 3
  • (c)1 and 3
  • (d)1, 2 and 3

  Answer(a) 1 and 2 - the passage numbers its two explanations and both are in the list. Rising freight rates appear only in the concessive sentence that follows, as a cost being absorbed rather than a force driving the shift.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  A passage states that a State 'creates only about a quarter of the formal jobs its new entrants need each year'. Which one of the following restates that faithfully ?

  • (a)About 75 per cent of the jobs needed each year are not being created
  • (b)About 25 per cent of new entrants find no formal job
  • (c)The State creates a quarter more jobs than its new entrants need
  • (d)Three-quarters of new entrants leave the State each year

  Answer(a) About 75 per cent of the jobs needed each year are not being created - a quarter of the requirement met leaves three-quarters unmet. (b) inverts the fraction, (c) reverses the shortfall into a surplus, and (d) adds a claim about migration that the sentence does not make.