Critical Reasoning

beeparoo wrote:A confidential survey revealed that 75 percent of the employees of Company P are dissatisfied with their jobs. However, an investigation into the working conditions of the company showed nothing uncommonly bad. Therefore, Company P's consulting firm concluded that the employees' dissatisfaction must result from an unusually high incidence of psychological problems on their part.

Each of the following, if true, casts doubt on the consulting firm's conclusion EXCEPT:

A. In the investigation of the working conditions, no account was taken of the fact that for the past year many Company P employees worked on a joint venture with Company O, at Company O's facilities.

B. Workers in many companies are dissatisfied although there are no apparent problems with their working conditions.

C. The consulting firm's conception of what constitutes uncommonly bad working conditions are not identical to that of Company P's employees.

D. The reasons given by Company P's employees for their dissatisfaction varied greatly from employee to employee

E. A battery of tests performed on Acme's employees one month ago revealed no significant psychological stresses or problems.

beeparoo wrote:A confidential survey revealed that 75 percent of the employees of Company P are dissatisfied with their jobs. However, an investigation into the working conditions of the company showed nothing uncommonly bad. Therefore, Company P's consulting firm concluded that the employees' dissatisfaction must result from an unusually high incidence of psychological problems on their part.

Each of the following, if true, casts doubt on the consulting firm's conclusion EXCEPT:

A. In the investigation of the working conditions, no account was taken of the fact that for the past year many Company P employees worked on a joint venture with Company O, at Company O's facilities.

B. Workers in many companies are dissatisfied although there are no apparent problems with their working conditions.

C. The consulting firm's conception of what constitutes uncommonly bad working conditions are not identical to that of Company P's employees.

D. The reasons given by Company P's employees for their dissatisfaction varied greatly from employee to employee


E. A battery of tests performed on Acme's employees one month ago revealed no significant psychological stresses or problems.

beeparoo wrote:A confidential survey revealed that 75 percent of the employees of Company P are dissatisfied with their jobs. However, an investigation into the working conditions of the company showed nothing uncommonly bad. Therefore, Company P's consulting firm concluded that the employees' dissatisfaction must result from an unusually high incidence of psychological problems on their part.

Each of the following, if true, casts doubt on the consulting firm's conclusion EXCEPT:

A. In the investigation of the working conditions, no account was taken of the fact that for the past year many Company P employees worked on a joint venture with Company O, at Company O's facilities.

B. Workers in many companies are dissatisfied although there are no apparent problems with their working conditions.

C. The consulting firm's conception of what constitutes uncommonly bad working conditions are not identical to that of Company P's employees.

D. The reasons given by Company P's employees for their dissatisfaction varied greatly from employee to employee

E. A battery of tests performed on Acme's employees one month ago revealed no significant psychological stresses or problems.

lunarpower wrote:

reply2spg wrote:Or how A weakens the argument?

beeparoo wrote:A confidential survey revealed that 75 percent of the employees of Company P are dissatisfied with their jobs. However, an investigation into the working conditions of the company showed nothing uncommonly bad. Therefore, Company P's consulting firm concluded that the employees' dissatisfaction must result from an unusually high incidence of psychological problems on their part.

Each of the following, if true, casts doubt on the consulting firm's conclusion EXCEPT:

A. In the investigation of the working conditions, no account was taken of the fact that for the past year many Company P employees worked on a joint venture with Company O, at Company O's facilities.

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remember what's going on in this problem:
the current working conditions of the company are not bad; therefore, the consulting company has gone over the top and decided that there are NO other possible reasons for the employees' expressed dissatisfaction, other than psychological problems.

therefore, absolutely anything else that might be the source of employee dissatisfaction -- i.e., anything other than current working conditions -- will weaken the argument.
if choice (a) is true, then the company's investigation of current working conditions is incomplete; it's possible that the low satisfaction ratings were caused by bad conditions at company O's facilities.

again, as i've said in a post above, this is not the world's best-written problem (or at least the transcription is not so good -- i have a strong suspicion that this is a secondhand or thirdhand transcription, especially given the flagrant error in choice (e).) if this were an official problem, the passage would be more explicit about the fact that the investigation only looked at the working conditions at company P's facility. that is certainly what is meant in the above passage, even if it's not written there; this is the danger of using problems from random sources -- the writing is often sufficiently bad that the problems actually train you to make otherwise unjustified assumptions!

lunarpower wrote:

reply2spg wrote:Or how A weakens the argument?

beeparoo wrote:A confidential survey revealed that 75 percent of the employees of Company P are dissatisfied with their jobs. However, an investigation into the working conditions of the company showed nothing uncommonly bad. Therefore, Company P's consulting firm concluded that the employees' dissatisfaction must result from an unusually high incidence of psychological problems on their part.

Each of the following, if true, casts doubt on the consulting firm's conclusion EXCEPT:

A. In the investigation of the working conditions, no account was taken of the fact that for the past year many Company P employees worked on a joint venture with Company O, at Company O's facilities.

---

remember what's going on in this problem:
the current working conditions of the company are not bad; therefore, the consulting company has gone over the top and decided that there are NO other possible reasons for the employees' expressed dissatisfaction, other than psychological problems.

therefore, absolutely anything else that might be the source of employee dissatisfaction -- i.e., anything other than current working conditions -- will weaken the argument.
if choice (a) is true, then the company's investigation of current working conditions is incomplete; it's possible that the low satisfaction ratings were caused by bad conditions at company O's facilities.

again, as i've said in a post above, this is not the world's best-written problem (or at least the transcription is not so good -- i have a strong suspicion that this is a secondhand or thirdhand transcription, especially given the flagrant error in choice (e).) if this were an official problem, the passage would be more explicit about the fact that the investigation only looked at the working conditions at company P's facility. that is certainly what is meant in the above passage, even if it's not written there; this is the danger of using problems from random sources -- the writing is often sufficiently bad that the problems actually train you to make otherwise unjustified assumptions!