Wilson's Department (help me understand)

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Wilson's Department (help me understand)

by max37274 » Sat Oct 24, 2009 8:10 pm
At the end of the year, Wilson's Department Store awards free merchandise to its top salespeople. When presented with the fact that that the number of salespeople receiving these awards has declined markedly over the past fifteen years, the newly appointed president of the company responded, " In that case, since our award criterion is present is membership in the top third of our sales force, we can also say that the number of salespeople passed over for these awards has similarly declined.

Which one of the following is an assumption that would allow the company president's conclusion to be properly drawn?

(A) Policies at Wilson's with regard to hiring salespeople have not become more lax over the past fifteen years.

(B) The number of salespeople at Wilson's has increased over the past fifteeen years.

(C) The criterion used by Wilson's for selecting its award recipients has remained the same for the past fifteen years. -
D) The average total sales figures for Wilson's salespeople have been declining for fifteen years.
E) Wilson's calculates its salespeople's sales figures in the same way as it did fifteen years ago
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by gmatmachoman » Sun Oct 25, 2009 5:41 am

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also what does the term "pass over" mean

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by 2010gmat » Sun Oct 25, 2009 9:44 am
IMO C ... if criteria were changed then it could possibly lead to a drop in no. of awardees...and hence in that case prez' claim falls apart ..so C is the answer...

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by xcusemeplz2009 » Sun Oct 25, 2009 11:34 am
IMO C

The president responds that the compnay is in top 3(i.e sales has not declined) even though the no. of salespeople reciving the award is declining. While responding this he claims that there is a decline in eligible salespeople for the award . And thus assumes that there is no other cause ( crieteria being diff) is the reason for the decline.

OA pls
It does not matter how many times you get knocked down , but how many times you get up

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OA IS C THANKS

by max37274 » Sun Oct 25, 2009 12:48 pm
IS C THANKS

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by max37274 » Tue Feb 16, 2010 3:54 am
could anyone please explain what does "pass over" mean? In dictionary it shows left out, discarded which if put in the para gives contradictory meaning.

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by vijay_venky » Tue Feb 16, 2010 5:26 am
And my answer is C
"to pass over" has multiple meanings,
1. to travel across
2. making a journey from one place to the other
3. to surpass
4. to ignore

from the context I took it to mean that the persons who qualified to be in the list of top third of the sales force.

Hope this helps...

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by max37274 » Wed Feb 17, 2010 3:31 am
thanks a lot Vijay for the clarification