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Draw a conclusion

by niketdoshi123 » Wed Jul 04, 2012 9:25 am
According to a recent magazine article, of those office employees who typically work 8 hours at the office each day but sometimes say that they will work at home on a particular day, 25 percent actually work less than one hour. At the same time, over 90 percent of those same office employees believe they are more productive working at home than working in their office.

The statements above, if true, best support which of the following conclusions about the office employees discussed in the article?

a)On average, the office employees working at home for a day work fewer hours than office employees working at the office.

b)10 percent of the office employees are less productive working from home than working in their office.

c)At least 15 percent of the office employees do not define productivity exclusively in terms of the number of hours worked.

d)At least 25 percent of the office employees can complete the same amount of work in one hour at home as in 8 hours at the office.

e)Some of the office employees make statements regarding their productivity that are not in fact true.

Is there any specific approach to this kind of questions??
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Wed Jul 04, 2012 10:06 am
When we're asked to provide a conclusion, we must find the one answer that is 100% true based on the evidence given. We must also pay close attention to the exact wording of the premises; we can't draw a conclusion that incorporates evidence we don't have.

For office workers who work at home, 25% work less than 1 hour (as compared to their normal office days of 8 hours).

25% of employees work less than 1 hour, 75% of employees work more than 1 hour

90% of the office workers who work at home believe they are more productive. (note that we only know what the employees think; we don't actually have any information about their true productivity)

90% of employees feel more productive, 10% of employees do not feel more productive

If we look at those numbers, we see a disconnect: how can 90% of employees feel more productive when, at most, 75% of them worked the same or more hours than they would in the office? How do we explain that missing 15%?

C fits by explaining that there may be other ways of measuring productivity used by that missing percentage.

A--we can't safely say this without knowing more information about the 75% who work more than 1 hour

B--we have no information about actual productivity, only about perceived productivity

D--we don't have any information about the amount of work done per hour

E--could be true, but we can't guarantee this. [/b]
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by mv12 » Thu Jul 05, 2012 11:54 am
Bill@VeritasPrep wrote:When we're asked to provide a conclusion, we must find the one answer that is 100% true based on the evidence given. We must also pay close attention to the exact wording of the premises; we can't draw a conclusion that incorporates evidence we don't have.

For office workers who work at home, 25% work less than 1 hour (as compared to their normal office days of 8 hours).

25% of employees work less than 1 hour, 75% of employees work more than 1 hour

90% of the office workers who work at home believe they are more productive. (note that we only know what the employees think; we don't actually have any information about their true productivity)

90% of employees feel more productive, 10% of employees do not feel more productive

If we look at those numbers, we see a disconnect: how can 90% of employees feel more productive when, at most, 75% of them worked the same or more hours than they would in the office? How do we explain that missing 15%?

C fits by explaining that there may be other ways of measuring productivity used by that missing percentage.

A--we can't safely say this without knowing more information about the 75% who work more than 1 hour

B--we have no information about actual productivity, only about perceived productivity

D--we don't have any information about the amount of work done per hour

E--could be true, but we can't guarantee this. [/b]
Bill ...how can you be sure that" 15 percent of the office employees do not define productivity exclusively in terms of the number of hours worked."

Passage only mentioned that 90 percent of those office employees who typically work 8 hours at the office each day... so we cant be so sure of option C.


Correct answer should be E.
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Thu Jul 05, 2012 2:07 pm
mv12 wrote:Bill ...how can you be sure that" 15 percent of the office employees do not define productivity exclusively in terms of the number of hours worked."

Passage only mentioned that 90 percent of those office employees who typically work 8 hours at the office each day... so we cant be so sure of option C.


Correct answer should be E.
With E, how can you guarantee that they are making false statements? That only works if the employees are simply using the number of hours worked to measure productivity, and that's pretty clearly not true based on the percentages.
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by mv12 » Thu Jul 05, 2012 9:58 pm
Bill@VeritasPrep wrote:
mv12 wrote:Bill ...how can you be sure that" 15 percent of the office employees do not define productivity exclusively in terms of the number of hours worked."

Passage only mentioned that 90 percent of those office employees who typically work 8 hours at the office each day... so we cant be so sure of option C.


Correct answer should be E.
With E, how can you guarantee that they are making false statements? That only works if the employees are simply using the number of hours worked to measure productivity, and that's pretty clearly not true based on the percentages.
See..25 percent actually work less than one hour. At the same time, over 90 percent of those same office employees believe they are more productive working at home than working in their office. ......So alteast 15% are making false statements.... as 15 = ( 25 - ( 100 - 90 ) )....
Last edited by mv12 on Thu Jul 05, 2012 10:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by mv12 » Thu Jul 05, 2012 10:01 pm
ok..I got it....these 15% are not making any statements..they simply believe...so they must have some other formula for measuring productivity. B-) B-)
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by GMATGuruNY » Fri Jul 06, 2012 2:19 am
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Fri Jul 06, 2012 10:03 am
mv12 wrote:ok..I got it....these 15% are not making any statements..they simply believe...so they must have some other formula for measuring productivity. B-) B-)
Exactly. We don't know anything about their actual productivity; maybe they measure by the number of episodes they watch on Netflix while working :)
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