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tough one

by 2010gmat » Thu Nov 26, 2009 7:07 am
Absenteeism among employees has decreased steadily over the past several years. Two possible explanations
have been offered. First, improved health insurance has allowed employees to maintain better health. Second,
improved working conditions have improved morale, leading to less desire to avoid work. However, since
absenteeism has also decreased at companies with poor or no health insurance and poor working conditions, one
must conclude that the cause of the decrease is the increased tendency of employers to deduct missed days from
employees' paychecks. Which of the following indicates a flaw in the reasoning above?
"¢ Employees who lack health insurance often have low morale.
"¢ Companies with poor working conditions are most likely to deduct pay for missed work days
"¢ Most employees are not honest about the reasons that they miss work
"¢ The definition of absenteeism is not clear
"¢ Improved health care, improved working conditions, and fear of losing money are not the only possible explanations
for decreased absenteeism

oa to follow....


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Source: — Critical Reasoning |
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by raghavakumar85 » Thu Nov 26, 2009 9:24 am
IMO E [spoiler]A B & C[/spoiler] are not valid reasoning for the flaw.

D is a statement which has no effect on the argument.
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by getso » Thu Nov 26, 2009 9:46 am
I go with E.
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by 2010gmat » Thu Nov 26, 2009 9:59 am
E says that the three reasons mentioned are NOT the only reasons....i think this choice ha a typo...OA is E ...but for OA to be E ...it should read that x,y nd z are the only reasons bla bla...

or do you feel choice E is right as it is...???
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by mehravikas » Thu Nov 26, 2009 7:02 pm
A, B and C are clearly out.

Between D and E. I would go with E as D does not weaken the argument at all.
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by Testluv » Thu Nov 26, 2009 8:51 pm
2010gmat wrote:E says that the three reasons mentioned are NOT the only reasons....i think this choice ha a typo...OA is E ...but for OA to be E ...it should read that x,y nd z are the only reasons bla bla...

or do you feel choice E is right as it is...???
2010gmat, your confusion has to do with the (mis)design of this question. Although the question stem is "flaw", the answer choices are not descriptions of the author's reasoning process. Instead, the answer choices are all facts, which is what they would be had this been a weaken question. In other words, the question stem says flaw but the answer choices suggest weaken. In fact, because all of the answer choices are facts rather than descriptions of flawed reasoning process, there is no correct answer to the question stem.

BUT, if we interpret this as a weaken question, then choice E is correct as written. And, if we interpret this as a flaw question, then it should have read: "the author presumes that the three reasons mentioned are the only reasons..." in order for it to be correct.

On the GMAT, the answer choices to a flaw question will all be descriptions of the author's flawed reasoning process (one of which will be a correct description of the arguer's faulty reasoning process) while the answer choices to weaken questions will be new facts. I feel that this question is mixing these two question types up. Perhaps someone should pm an MGMAT expert.

I have the same issues with this "flaw" question as I did with this one you posted the other day:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/recently-som ... 43522.html
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