Critical Reasoning

According to a recent magazine article, of those office employees who typically work 8 hours at the office each day but sometimes say that they will work at home on a particular day, 25 percent actually work less than one hour. At the same time, over 90 percent of those same office employees believe they are more productive working at home than working in their office.

The statements above, if true, best support which of the following conclusions about the office employees discussed in the article?

On average, the office employees working at home for a day work fewer hours than office employees working at the office.

10 percent of the office employees are less productive working from home than working in their office.

At least 15 percent of the office employees do not define productivity exclusively in terms of the number of hours worked.

At least 25 percent of the office employees can complete the same amount of work in one hour at home as in 8 hours at the office.

Some of the office employees make statements regarding their productivity that are not in fact true.

IMO : A

B) 90% believe they are more productive, that means 10 % may believe they are not or have no opinion,even if believe they are not more productive its their beliefe, they might be
C)No staistics talk about the number of employess who measure productivity by the no of hours worked in the argument
D)No stats to support this, the 25% talked to in argument are those out of who work from home and not of the whole lot of office employess as this point suggests
E) This may or may not be true, so this can not be the answer

no that s not the answer

OA after some discussion

IMO - C

25% of people that normally work 8 hours a day in the office work less than 1 hour when they work at home. Yet 90% of the same set of people say they are more productive at home than they are at the office. The other 10% that don't think they are more productive at home could be in the 25% that work less than 1 hour at home. But that means that at least 15% of the people work less than 1 hour a day when they work at home, yet still believe they are more productive while they are working from home. The only way this can be the case is if their definition of productivity is different than simply looking at hours worked.

since we need to find the conclusion , it should not contradict the data. I think the answer is D

On average, the office employees working at home for a day work fewer hours than office employees working at the office.
<cannot get information about average as there is no definite information on 90% of people>

10 percent of the office employees are less productive working from home than working in their office.
<no information on productivity of people working from home>

At least 15 percent of the office employees do not define productivity exclusively in terms of the number of hours worked.
<25% report that they work for less than 1 hr. But 90% say they are more productive working from home. Removing the 10% who are not productive from 25% , we get that atlest 15% who define productivity not in terms of work hours >

At least 25 percent of the office employees can complete the same amount of work in one hour at home as in 8 hours at the office.
<No mention of amount of work>

Some of the office employees make statements regarding their productivity that are not in fact true.
<Irrelavant>

garima99 wrote:According to a recent magazine article, of those office employees who typically work 8 hours at the office each day but sometimes say that they will work at home on a particular day, 25 percent actually work less than one hour. At the same time, over 90 percent of those same office employees believe they are more productive working at home than working in their office.

The statements above, if true, best support which of the following conclusions about the office employees discussed in the article?

On average, the office employees working at home for a day work fewer hours than office employees working at the office.

10 percent of the office employees are less productive working from home than working in their office.

At least 15 percent of the office employees do not define productivity exclusively in terms of the number of hours worked.

At least 25 percent of the office employees can complete the same amount of work in one hour at home as in 8 hours at the office.

Some of the office employees make statements regarding their productivity that are not in fact true.

Explanation: While 25% worked less than an hour, 90 believed that they would be more productive at home.. meaning 10% dont think so.. if we subtract this from 25%, we get 15% which would be the minimum (All of the 25% could be in the 90% group) who feel that though they will work less hours, they will still be more productive.

Hence C is the correct one!!

This one is not clear. How are subtracting 10% from 25%?

Source ??

Some expert please help on this one.

Thanks
Mankey

garima99 wrote:According to a recent magazine article, of those office employees who typically work 8 hours at the office each day but sometimes say that they will work at home on a particular day, 25 percent actually work less than one hour. At the same time, over 90 percent of those same office employees believe they are more productive working at home than working in their office.

The statements above, if true, best support which of the following conclusions about the office employees discussed in the article?

On average, the office employees working at home for a day work fewer hours than office employees working at the office.

10 percent of the office employees are less productive working from home than working in their office.

At least 15 percent of the office employees do not define productivity exclusively in terms of the number of hours worked.

At least 25 percent of the office employees can complete the same amount of work in one hour at home as in 8 hours at the office.

Some of the office employees make statements regarding their productivity that are not in fact true.

Given 100 employees who sometimes work at home:
90 believe that they are MORE PRODUCTIVE AT HOME.
25 work LESS THAN 1 HOUR.
Since 90+25 = 115, and the total = 100, AT LEAST 15 employees are members of both groups, believing that they are MORE PRODUCTIVE at home even though they work LESS THAN 1 HOUR.
For these 15 employees, productivity does not depend on the number of hours worked.

The facts above support answer choice C: At least 15 percent of the office employees do not define productivity exclusively in terms of the number of hours worked.

The correct answer is C.

Thanks Guru.

Your explanation definitely helps. But the problem is when you face such a question for the first time and you dont know the answer, how do you strike off the other options. Will appreciate a help on this.

Mankey

According to a recent magazine article, of those office employees who typically work 8 hours at the office each day but sometimes say that they will work at home on a particular day, 25 percent actually work less than one hour. At the same time, over 90 percent of those same office employees believe they are more productive working at home than working in their office.

The statements above, if true, best support which of the following conclusions about the office employees discussed in the article?

On average, the office employees working at home for a day work fewer hours than office employees working at the office.

10 percent of the office employees are less productive working from home than working in their office.

At least 15 percent of the office employees do not define productivity exclusively in terms of the number of hours worked.

At least 25 percent of the office employees can complete the same amount of work in one hour at home as in 8 hours at the office.

Some of the office employees make statements regarding their productivity that are not in fact true.



Gmatfuru!!! could you please explain all the answer choices in detail especially option A. Option A is driving me crazy since a long time....

Just because 90% feel something is true does not make a fact. The 90% have an unjustified feeling. That is only what the sentence says. A feeling exists.

B) says 10 percent of the office employees are less productive working from home than working in their office.

Based upon what? The unjustified feelings of a 90%? Obviously bogus.



25% work only an hour at home. What does that say about the 75%? Nothing. Reality is true, false, or undefined. The world is ternary. That 75% lie in 'undefined'.

A) says On average, the office employees working at home for a day work fewer hours than office employees working at the office.

A missing number is for the 75%. We know the 75% are 'undefined'. Unknown. No numbers exist to make any calculations. A is impossible since for all we know, the other 75% work 16 hours a day when home.



E) says Some of the office employees make statements regarding their productivity that are not in fact true.

We know over 90 percent of those same office employees believe they are more productive working at home than working in their office. But we have no idea how much work gets done in the office. Employees may be in the office for eight hours and only work for 15 minutes. To make E) valid, a major assumption is required. That an employee working for one hour produces one hour of productive work. We have no reason to make that assumption.



How much work actually gets done? No numbers are provided. Not one conclusion is valid because essential facts are missing. If we assume one hour of working results in one hour of useful production, then conclusions are possible. But making that assumption is not acceptable in critical reasoning.

At best, we can only say people feel conclusions that are not supported by facts and numbers. And that 25% only work for about 1 hour when at home. Doing what for one hour? May or may not do productive work. We just do not know due to critically important and missing facts.