Critical Reasoning

Manager: Accounting and Billing are located right next to each other and the two departments do similar kinds of work; yet expenditures for clerical supplies charged to Billing are much higher. Is Billing wasting supplies?
Head of Billing: Not at all.
Which of the following, if true, best supports the position of the Head of Billing?
(A) There are more staff members in Accounting than in Billing.
(B) Two years ago, expenditures in Accounting for clerical supplies were the same as were expenditures that year in Billing for clerical supplies.
(C) The work of Billing now requires a wider variety of clerical supplies than it did in the past.
(D) Some of the paper-and-pencil work of both Accounting and Billing has been replaced by work done on computers.
(E) Members of Accounting found the clerical supplies cabinet of Billing more convenient to go to for supplies than their own department’s cabinet.

We are looking for something that would strengthen or justify that billing department dos not have unnecessary expenditures i.e expenditures for clerical supplies charged to Billing are much higher is justified dur to some valid reasons

E does that by saying that Accounting department has been using Billing's celrical supplies facility. This would justify that Billing is not wasting supplies

cramya wrote:We are looking for something that would strengthen or justify that billing department dos not have unnecessary expenditures i.e expenditures for clerical supplies charged to Billing are much higher is justified dur to some valid reasons

E does that by saying that Accounting department has been using Billing's celrical supplies facility. This would justify that Billing is not wasting supplies

Just because Accounting department is using Billing supplies facility doesn't mean they are accounted under billing department expenditures???

Is that assumed.

Thanks
raama

IMO thats a reasonable assumtpion.

I think in this question if accounting goes to billing for clerical supplies then billing has to replenish these supplies(for thier own use also). If this keeps happenning then the expenditures are going to go up.

Also since Accounting clerical supplies are not depleting as much as billing dept naturally their expenditure stays down.

What is wrong with Option C.
I understand that the scope shifts by mentioning 'wider variety of clerical supplies' but does it not translate to more usage and hence more expenditure.
Ofcourse i am assuming that there is more usage because of wider variety and not wastage

I think the answer is (E) here. Here is how, I eliminated the other options:
(A)This weakens the HOB's(head of billing) stand. The manager will get furious - if accounting has more people, they have a reason to produce a smaller budget for clerical supplies.
(B)What happened two years ago is not going to save the HOB from the wrath of the manger. The stuff that happened 2 years ago (B) does not help HOB
(C) This was tempting, but the argument tells us that both the departments do similar kinds of work. So if the work of Billing now requires more clerical supplies, so must the work of accounting.
(D)As per this option, both dept's have the same needs, so budget should be same.
(E) With similar needs, clerical supplies are similar, hence accounting must be saving, by having folks take supplies from Billing. Now the manager is angry, not on HOB but on HOA .

Clear E

definitely E,

But the option E states "it is MORE CONVINIENT for X to use Y's".......not "X uses Y's"
Now we need to assume that X chose a convinient way and hence uses Y's instead of its own:

Though none of the other options is better than E, C is a proper trap!

Hence answer must be E only

I would go with option E as the correct option