rakeshd347 wrote:
A shortage of orders for Manto Aircraft's airliners has led analysts to predict that the manufacturer will have to lay off workers. The new order that Consolidated Airlines has just made for 20 of Manto's Model TX jets does not provide a reason for the analysts to revise their predictions, because simultaneously with its new order, Consolidated canceled its existing order for an equal number of Manto's larger, more expensive Model Z jets.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
(A) Manto relies more heavily on outside subcontractors to provide the labor to manufacture the model Z than it does for the Model TX.
(B) The Manto employees who currently work to manufacture the model Z are not proficient at manufacturing the Model TX.
(C) Manto includes all required maintenance work for the first five years in the price of each jet it sells.
(D) Manto has had to lay off workers several times within the past ten years but has typically rehired many of the workers when it subsequently received new orders.
(E) A large number of the airliners in Consolidated's fleet are at the beginning of their expected service life.
My Mapping:
Less orders for MA -> Analysts predict MA would have to lay off workers
(Considering the current order book -> workers are sitting idle, they wont have work in the future etc..)
MA has received 20 orders for TX from CA
BUT simultaneously lost 20 orders for Z (costlier and larger)
(Order book is the same, with the same number of workers sitting idle as before...)
Conclusion: MA would have to lay off workers (analysts' prediction)
We have to weaken the above conclusion:
(A) Manto relies more heavily on outside subcontractors to provide the labor to manufacture the model Z than it does for the Model TX.
Since most of the workers working on Z were outside subcontractors, in-house workers could be used for manufacturing TX Models. This would imply that no layoffs would be required and that idle-workers could start working on TX models. Lets keep this for now.
(B) The Manto employees who currently work to manufacture the model Z are not proficient at manufacturing the Model TX.
The skill level is not provided in the question, so we cant compare skills of Z workers with that of TX workers. Out of scope.
(C) Manto includes all required maintenance work for the first five years in the price of each jet it sells.
Price package for maintenance work does not answer the question of "worker lay offs" and how workers would be utilized in the package. Out of scope.
(D) Manto has had to lay off workers several times within the past ten years but has typically rehired many of the workers when it subsequently received new orders.
Tricky. Going by the past actions we could expect that MA would rehire old workers, but the question implies that there is no change in the order book. So technically we are left with same number of orders and idle workers as before.
(E) A large number of the airliners in Consolidated's fleet are at the beginning of their expected service life.
Irrelevant. We dont know that the majority of the CA's airlines are manufactured by MA. These are all fresh airlines so if another manufacturer provided the airlines to CA it would be the responsibility of that other manufacturer to provide the maintenance services. We are concerned with MA only, so Out of scope.
[spoiler]Out of A and D, A directly questions the claim regarding "worker layoffs", Answer is A[/spoiler]
