17. With the emergence of private companies producing weapons for war, it is feared that they would shift information about their researches and developers as well as its projects to the new level of secrecy. This in turn would decrease the efficiency of each of the research/developer and prevent our country from being number one in weaponry development and production.

Which of the following, if true, would tend to most seriously weaken the prediction of the introduction of new levels of secrecy and its supposed outcome?

a. Our country is far ahead of any other country in the development of the weaponry.
b. Private companies that produce weapons of war in other countries have already installed new level of secrecy.
c. Researchers/developers in the field of weaponry do not know a lot about each other.
d. New level of secrecy would enable the companies to jump forward in the research/development, compared to such companies in other countries, as it would decrease the leak of information.
e. Researchers/developers in this field know everything about each other and the projects that are being worked on.

Should be D.

If the new level of secrecy will enable the companies jump ahead of other companies then surely we are not at any disadvantage and this will not put us in #2 position.
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SAID BUSINESS SCHOOL, OXFORD - MBA CLASS OF 2008

Will go with D.

D address both points mentioned in the passage.
--> Level of secrecy in private companies
--> and why it would help the country rather than make the country weak

I beg to differ.I'll go with C.
This in turn would decrease the efficiency of each of the research/developer and prevent our country from being number one in weaponry development and production.

The new level of secrecy will not decrease the efficiency of researchers.

I think that zoom612 understood my logic in this question. And yes, u2lover, that question from the OG inspired me to come up with something similar... So, the correct answer, in my opinion is C.
The tension here is between the leak of information and the level to which people who work in the industry know each other. If there are links between researchers in different companies, then the new level of secrecy would cause these links to break. On the other hand, though, researchers might be inspired by each others' work which could cause some of them build on what others are working on and put some of the companies forward, though unfairly. as an example, imagine several researchers sharing thoughts with each other. this might cause one of them to start a project that someone else has merely dreamt about. the word 'efficiency' in the question stem plays an important role.
a. does not deal with the question stem directly, rather merely mentions an additional fact. we do not know how long it would take for our country to lose its position.
b. so what? we do not know the results. we have to have information in order to draw conclusions.
c. states that there are not many links, if at all, between researchers in different companies. this means that new levels of secrecy would not influence efficiency of the researchers work, as they are not inspired by each other's thoughts.
d. compares local companies with foreign markets, but does not indicate the relationship between the local companies. this answer suggests that most leaks help such companies abroad, giving them an unfair advantage. if the local researchers share their knowledge with each other and therefore boost efficiency, enabling our country to be number one in the field in the world, new levels of secrecy would make it impossible, decreasing efficiency of each individual researcher.
e. if the researchers know everything about each other and their work, then new level of secrecy would definitely decrease efficiency.

actually i chosed C at first and edited to D because the passage talks about researches/developers but not about researchers/developer. therefore, i changed my answer to D.

your OA(s) is(are) highly controversial unlike real CR questions and their answers.