Critical Reasoning

Manager: Although our corporation lists office rules in an orientation booklet, few employees read the booklet carefully enough to familiarize themselves with all the rules. Lecturing employees for inadvertent rule violations often makes them resentful and less cooperative. Thus, to improve employee adherence to office rules, we plan to issue gentle reminders about various rules in each issue of our weekly newsletter.

Which of the following would it be most helpful to discover about the employees in the corporation in order to evaluate the likelihood that the plan will succeed?

(A) Whether most of them who are lectured for inadvertent rule violations are deterred from violating the same rule again

(B) Whether most of them who inadvertently violate office rules already feel resentful and uncooperative

(C) Whether most of them violate at least some office rules with which they are familiar

(D) Whether most of them who regularly read the weekly newsletter are familiar with at least some office rules

(E) Whether most of them would usually read with sufficient care the portions of the weekly newsletter that are reminders of rules

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-Patrick

What is the source of this question?

I am not completely comfortable with the grammar in the correct answer E.


This is a straightforward plan question. The best way to solve this is to focus on the PLAN and the GOAL.

The Goal is to "to improve employee adherence to office rules" the Plan is to "issue gentle reminders about various rules in each issue of our weekly newsletter."

We want to choose the answer that would be Most Useful to Know in Order to Evaluate this Plan. Choice E works perfectly here. If most employees do read the weekly newspaper with care then these reminders may work. If most do not read the newsletter with sufficient care this tends to show that the plan may not work.

This is not a difficult question and can be solved a number of ways, however when you get to the harder plan questions focusing on the PLAN and the GOAL can make life much easier!

Can anyone explain why D is wrong ?
I think D is also a strong contender

Regard,

D is not a great choice because knowing whether most employees are familiar with "some" rules doesn't help us assess how effective the plan is.

> if most employees know some rules, the rules that are put in the newsletter may still be new to them, so the plan can still succeed (or fail)

The use of the qualifier "at least some" makes answer D too weak to be helpful. A stronger answer would replace this with "the". If most employees already know all or most of the office rules, then including reminders in the newsletter is less likely to work.