Critical Reasoning

KSHITIJ205 wrote:Which of the following most logically completes the argument?
A significant number of Unitron Corporation's department heads are due to retire this year. The number of employees other than current department heads who could take on the position of department head is equal to only about half of the expected vacancies. Unitron is not going to hire department heads from outside the company or have current department heads take over more than one department, so some departments will be without department heads next year since Unitron will not ______.

A. raise the minimum qualifications an employee must have to be promoted to department head
B. promote any current department heads to higher managerial positions
C. reduce the responsibilities of each department
D. have any managers who are currently senior to the department heads appointed as department heads
E. reduces the average number of employees per department

OA D

A student asked me to answer this question, so here it goes . . .

1) Read the question stem to determine the question type.
Tricky!
With fill-in-the-blank questions, it's often difficult to determine the question type.
The last sentence reads Unitron is not going to hire department heads from outside the company or have current department heads take over more than one department, so some departments will be without department heads next year since Unitron will not ______.

IMO, this could be an Assumption question or a Strengthen The Argument question.
It doesn't really matter here, since the outcomes are similar.
If it's an Assumption question, then the correct answer choice is necessary to make the conclusion follow from the premises, and if it's a Strengthen The Argument question, then the correct answer choice helps to make the conclusion follow from the premises.

2) Read the argument and summarize the premises and conclusion
PREMISE: Several department heads will retire this year.
PREMISE: Number of qualified EMPLOYEES who could be dept heads = half of what's needed.
PREMISE: Unitron won't hire department heads from outside company.
PREMISE: A department head cannot handle more than one department
CONCLUSION: Next year, some departments won't have a dept head

3) Try to identify what the correct answer might be (before examining the answer choices)
If no luck . . . start checking answer choices.

(A) raise the minimum qualifications an employee must have to be promoted to department head
Regardless of whether the question is an Assumption question or a Strengthen The Argument question, we can still use the NEGATION technique.
The only difference is that, with an Assumption question, we need the negated answer choice to DESTROY the arguments, and with a Strengthen The Argument question, we just need the negated answer choice to HURT the arguments.

NEGATION: Unitron WILL raise the minimum qualifications an employee must have to be promoted to department head
If we make it even harder to become a dept head, then there WILL be departments without a dept head
Since the negated answer choice actually HELPS the conclusion, we can ELIMINATE A

(B) promote any current department heads to higher managerial positions
NEGATION: Unitron WILL promote any current department heads to higher managerial positions
This would result in even fewer dept heads, which means there WILL be departments without a dept head
Since the negated answer choice actually HELPS the conclusion, we can ELIMINATE B

(C) reduce the responsibilities of each department
NEGATION: Unitron WILL reduce the responsibilities of each department
This does not harm/destroy the conclusion, since each dept will still need a dept head.
ELIMINATE C

(D) have any manager who are currently senior to the department heads appointed as department heads
NEGATION: Unitron WILL have any manager who are currently senior to the department heads appointed as department heads
This means we're going to have a bunch of EXTRA people to become dept heads.
This definitely hurts the conclusion that some departments won't have a dept head next year.
KEEP D

(E) reduce the average number of employees per department
NEGATION: Unitron WILL reducesthe average number of employees per department
This does not harm/destroy the conclusion, since each dept will still need a dept head.
ELIMINATE E

Answer: D

Cheers,
Brent