Highest Priority

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Highest Priority

by okigbo » Sat Sep 19, 2009 2:16 pm
Ravi: The highest priority should be given to the needs of the sales department because without successful sales the company as a whole would fail

Ed: There are several departments other than sales that must also function successfully for the company to succeed. It is impossible to give the highest priority to all of them

Ed criticizes Ravi's argument by pointing out:

a. That the sales department taken by itself is not critical to the company's success as a whole
b. The ambiguity of the term "highest priority"
c. That the departments other than sales are more vital to the company's success
d. An absurd consequence of its apparent assumption that a departments' necessity earns it the highest priority
e. That Ravi makes a generalization from an atypical case

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by pandeyvineet24 » Sat Sep 19, 2009 2:21 pm
A for me.

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by arorag » Sat Sep 19, 2009 2:25 pm
its A??

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by okigbo » Sat Sep 19, 2009 2:37 pm
A is not the answer. Argument is that sales department is critical but so are other departments...

Any other thoughts?

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by rohan_vus » Sat Sep 19, 2009 2:44 pm
option D pretty much summarizes the way ED criticizes Ravi . So IMO D.

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by gmatmachoman » Mon Sep 21, 2009 11:17 am
rohan_vus wrote:option D pretty much summarizes the way ED criticizes Ravi . So IMO D.
Vote for D from myside!

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by DarkKnight » Fri Sep 25, 2009 11:39 am
I will go with B.

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D

by sumank8216 » Fri Sep 25, 2009 12:10 pm
D for sure.

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by gmatmachoman » Sat Sep 26, 2009 3:17 am
Someone forgot to post the OA?/

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Re: Highest Priority

by lunarpower » Sat Sep 26, 2009 3:21 am
okigbo wrote:Ravi: The highest priority should be given to the needs of the sales department because without successful sales the company as a whole would fail

Ed: There are several departments other than sales that must also function successfully for the company to succeed. It is impossible to give the highest priority to all of them

Ed criticizes Ravi's argument by pointing out:

a. That the sales department taken by itself is not critical to the company's success as a whole
b. The ambiguity of the term "highest priority"
c. That the departments other than sales are more vital to the company's success
d. An absurd consequence of its apparent assumption that a departments' necessity earns it the highest priority
e. That Ravi makes a generalization from an atypical case
this is (d).

in summary:

ed takes the sales dept's argument and applies it to OTHER depts, and shows that, if you apply the same reasoning to other depts, then, well, all of them deserve "highest priority" as well.
that's not workable at all (= "absurd").

(a) is wrong.
ed just says that other depts are also important. this is nowhere close to saying that sales is NOT important. (analogy: if you say you love your son, does that imply that you don't love your daughter?)

(b) is wrong. in fact, it's opposite of the argument: ed's argument actually depends on the fact that "highest priority" is UNambiguous. (he says "it is impossible to give the highest priority to all of them"; this depends on a clear definition of "highest".)
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by gmatmachoman » Sat Sep 26, 2009 3:34 am
tHANKS ON!!

D MAKES SENSE

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by james33 » Sun May 15, 2016 9:42 pm
I'm pretty confident that D is correct answer.