Maciek wrote:Most employees in the computer industry move from company to company, changing jobs several times in their careers. However, Summit Computers is known throughout the industry for retaining its employees. Summit credits its success in retaining employees to its informal, nonhierarchical work environment.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports Summit's explanation of its success in retaining employees?
(A) Some people employed in the computer industry change jobs if they become bored with their current projects.
(B) A hierarchical work environment hinders the cooperative exchange of ideas that computer industry employees consider necessary for their work.
(C) Many of Summit's senior employees had previously worked at only one other computer company.
(D) In a nonhierarchical work environment, people avoid behavior that might threaten group harmony and thus avoid discussing with their colleagues any dissatisfaction they might have with their jobs.
(E) The cost of living near Summit is relatively low compared to areas in which some other computer companies are located

OA A

Source: 300 GMAT CR questions with Best Solutions posted by papgust https://www.beatthegmat.com/download-gma ... 59366.html

Can you explain the solution?

this passage is arguing that a non-hierarchical environment is better than a hierarchical one.
You can strengthen such a claim in either of 2 ways:
* show something better about the NON-hierarchical environment, OR
* show something worse about the hierarchical environment.
The official answer does the latter of these.

Stuart Kovinsky wrote:B is definitely the correct answer - A is outside the scope, since it's unrelated to Summit's explanation, while B is right on point.

paes wrote:

Stuart Kovinsky wrote:B is definitely the correct answer - A is outside the scope, since it's unrelated to Summit's explanation, while B is right on point.

Stuart,

I agree that OA is B.
But somehow I am not able to discard D.

B is talking about hier. environment
and D is talking about non-hier. environment.

So, in some way, it seems that B is out of the scope and only D is giving some +ve thing about the non-hier [ summmit's company] environment.

Please explain.

paes wrote:

Stuart Kovinsky wrote:B is definitely the correct answer - A is outside the scope, since it's unrelated to Summit's explanation, while B is right on point.

Stuart,

I agree that OA is B.
But somehow I am not able to discard D.

B is talking about hier. environment
and D is talking about non-hier. environment.

So, in some way, it seems that B is out of the scope and only D is giving some +ve thing about the non-hier [ summmit's company] environment.

Please explain.

Stuart Kovinsky wrote:

paes wrote:

Stuart Kovinsky wrote:B is definitely the correct answer - A is outside the scope, since it's unrelated to Summit's explanation, while B is right on point.

Stuart,

I agree that OA is B.
But somehow I am not able to discard D.

B is talking about hier. environment
and D is talking about non-hier. environment.

So, in some way, it seems that B is out of the scope and only D is giving some +ve thing about the non-hier [ summmit's company] environment.

Please explain.

To get from D to something positive, you have to make assumptions.

D does not say that a non-hierarchical environment is preferred by workers. D also does not say that a non-hierarchical environment is good for the company. D certainly does not say that employees in a non-hierarchical environment are not dissatisfied.

What D does say is that in a non-hierarchical environment, employees keep their opinions (negative ones, anyway), to themselves. We're not supposed to be psychiatrists, so we have no clue what impact that has on the workplace. For all we know, if employees keep all their negative opinions bottled up, they're seething with rage on the inside and are 1 step away from a nervous breakdown. Have you ever been in a situation in which you couldn't tell anyone all the things that were bugging you? Just because you don't let your feelings out doesn't mean that you don't have those feelings.

So, since D requires us to make assumptions about the effect of not sharing your feelings, it's automatically outside the scope.

Here are two good rules of thumb (since you have two thumbs!) for evaluating choices in CR:

1) if you have to bring in outside knowledge to make an answer choice fit, it's the wrong answer; and

2) the more work you have to do to justify a choice, the less likely that it's the correct answer.

edited for typo!