Critical Reasoning

Companies O and P each have the same number of employees who work the same number of hours per week. According to record maintained by each company, the employees of company O had fewer job related accidents last year than did the employees of company P. Therefore, employees of company O are less likely to have job-related accidents than are employees of company P.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the conclusion ?

A) The employees of company P lost more time at work due to job-related accidents than did the employees of company O.

B) Company P considered more types of accidents to be job-related than did company O.

C) The employees of company P were sick more often than were the employees of company O.

D) Several employees of company O each had more than one job-related accident.

E) The majority of Job-related accidents at company O involved a single machine.

Please explain how B weaken the conclusion?

Thanks

rsarashi wrote:Companies O and P each have the same number of employees who work the same number of hours per week. According to record maintained by each company, the employees of company O had fewer job related accidents last year than did the employees of company P. Therefore, employees of company O are less likely to have job-related accidents than are employees of company P.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the conclusion ?

A) The employees of company P lost more time at work due to job-related accidents than did the employees of company O.

B) Company P considered more types of accidents to be job-related than did company O.

C) The employees of company P were sick more often than were the employees of company O.

D) Several employees of company O each had more than one job-related accident.

E) The majority of Job-related accidents at company O involved a single machine.

Please explain how B weaken the conclusion?

Thanks

Imagine that we have two types of accidents:

1) Dropping a stapler on your foot and
2) Slipping on the tile in the bathroom

Let's say the stats for the two companies look like this

Company O: 20 employees drop a stapler on their foot; 30 employees slip in the bathroom
Company P: 20 employees drop a stapler on their foot; 15 employees slip in the bathroom

So 50 total employees get hurt at Company O and 35 total get hurt at Company P.

But now imagine that only Company P treats slipping in the bathroom as a job-related injury. Now Company O will report 20 job-related injuries and Company P will report all 35 injuries as job-related. Clearly, it's not true that an employee is more likely to be injured at P! It's simply that P treats more types of injuries as work-related than O does.

The answer is B

Imagine that we have two types of accidents:

1) Dropping a stapler on your foot and
2) Slipping on the tile in the bathroom

Let's say the stats for the two companies look like this

Company O: 20 employees drop a stapler on their foot; 30 employees slip in the bathroom
Company P: 20 employees drop a stapler on their foot; 15 employees slip in the bathroom

So 50 total employees get hurt at Company O and 35 total get hurt at Company P.

But now imagine that only Company P treats slipping in the bathroom as a job-related injury. Now Company O will report 20 job-related injuries and Company P will report all 35 injuries as job-related. Clearly, it's not true that an employee is more likely to be injured at P! It's simply that P treats more types of injuries as work-related than O does.

The answer is B¯

Hi DavidG ,

Thank you so much for your reply.

But still I have a doubt.

Question doesn't say that one company is assuming only one type of job related accident. So how can we assume below?

It can also happen that company O actually has fewer job related accidents.

Please explain sir.

Thanks.

rsarashi wrote:

Imagine that we have two types of accidents:

1) Dropping a stapler on your foot and
2) Slipping on the tile in the bathroom

Let's say the stats for the two companies look like this

Company O: 20 employees drop a stapler on their foot; 30 employees slip in the bathroom
Company P: 20 employees drop a stapler on their foot; 15 employees slip in the bathroom

So 50 total employees get hurt at Company O and 35 total get hurt at Company P.

But now imagine that only Company P treats slipping in the bathroom as a job-related injury. Now Company O will report 20 job-related injuries and Company P will report all 35 injuries as job-related. Clearly, it's not true that an employee is more likely to be injured at P! It's simply that P treats more types of injuries as work-related than O does.

The answer is B¯

Hi DavidG ,

Thank you so much for your reply.

But still I have a doubt.

Question doesn't say that one company is assuming only one type of job related accident. So how can we assume below?

It can also happen that company O actually has fewer job related accidents.

Please explain sir.

Thanks.

You're right that the answer choice doesn't specify that Company reports one type of injury as a job-related accident, but it does say that P specifies more types of injury as job-related accidents than O does. So I used at example in which P had 2 types of job-related injuries and O just had 1, but, of course, it could have been 3:1 or 3:2, etc. so long as P had more. The point was to illustrate how classifying fewer types of injuries as being job-related could distort the impression of total number of injuries. And while O doesn't have to have more injuries in such a scenario, if the two companies have different standards for what constitutes a work-related injury, the conclusion based on the number of reported injuries is no longer warranted - we know for sure that certain types of injuries that P would report, O would not. At the very least, we're left with doubt.