A company's personnel director surveyed employees about their satisfac

Question

A company's personnel director surveyed employees about their satisfaction with the company's system for awarding employee performance ratings. The survey data indicated that employees who received high ratings were very satisfied with the system. The personnel director concluded from these data that the company's best-performing employees liked the system.

The personnel director's conclusion assumes which of the following?

The personnel director's conclusion assumes which of the following?

A. No other performance rating system is as good as the current system.

B. The company's best-performing employees received high ratings.

C. Employees who received low ratings were dissatisfied with the system.

D. Employees who receive high ratings from a performance-rating system will like that system.

E. The company's best-performing employees were motivated to perform well by the knowledge that they would receive performance ratings.

CR79561.01

shridhar786 · Accepted Answer

PREMISE 
--A company's personnel director surveyed employees about their satisfaction with the company's system for awarding employee performance ratings.
--The survey data indicated that employees who received high ratings were very satisfied with the system.

CONCLUSION 
--the company's best-performing employees liked the system.

There is a gap in the argument--survey data indicated that employees who received high ratings were very satisfied with the system
from this author concluded that the company's best-performing employees liked the system.
--by saying this author assumes that --the company's best-performing employees and employees who received high ratings are same (this bridges the link between premise and conclusion--this is supporter assumption)

A.  No other performance rating system is as good as the current system. 
--we are not concerned about other performance rating system
--this answer choice does not help our conclusion in any way--this need not to be true for our conclusion to hold
 (irrelevant)

B.  The company's best-performing employees received high ratings. 
---this is the correct answer choice this matches our prethinking
---negating this--The company's best-performing employees do not received high ratings then we cant say that they are satisfied with the system and our conclusion falls apart-- (correct)

C.  Employees who received low ratings were dissatisfied with the system. 
--negate this --Employees who received low ratings were satisfied with the system
---this does not say anything about our conclusion--we don't know anything about high performing employees
--our conclusion can still hold  (incorrect)

D.  Employees who receive high ratings from a performance-rating system will like that system.
 
--this answer choice does not bridge the gap between Employees who receive high ratings and high performing employees
--negating this--Employees who receive high ratings from a performance-rating system will not like that system.
---but still, we can't say anything about high performing employees---there is a possibility that high performing employees do not receive high rating but still like the system--so, our conclusion still holds  (incorrect)

E.  The company's best-performing employees were motivated to perform well by the knowledge that they would receive performance ratings.
 
---this answer choice does not reinforce our conclusion
---negating this does not shatter our conclusion 
---there is a possibility that the high performing employees like the system ---our conclusion can still hold 
--this cant be the assumption  (incorrect)

Skywalker18 · Answer

A company's personnel director surveyed employees about their satisfaction with the company's system for awarding employee performance ratings. The survey data indicated that employees who received high ratings were very satisfied with the system. The personnel director concluded from these data that the company's best-performing employees liked the system.

The personnel director's conclusion assumes which of the following?

Type-assumption
Core-the company's best-performing employees liked the system.
Premise- employees who received high ratings were very satisfied with the system
Pre-thinking- the argument jumps from employees who received high ratings to best-performers

A. No other performance rating system is as good as the current system.- irrelevant

B. The company's best-performing employees received high ratings.- Correct, this bridges the gap in the argument

C. Employees who received low ratings were dissatisfied with the system.- irrelevant

D. Employees who receive high ratings from a performance-rating system will like that system.- incorrect, the argument talks about a specific rating system whereas option D talks in general. Also, option D is a more general version of our premise

E. The company's best-performing employees were motivated to perform well by the knowledge that they would receive performance ratings.- irrelevant, motitvation is not relevant

Answer B

gmatt1476 · Answer

Official Explanation

Argument Construction

Which one of the following states an assumption on which the personnel director's conclusion depends?

The assumption we seek must provide a needed logical connection between the given information and the conclusion drawn. From the information given, it seems reasonable to think that the employees very satisfied with the system also liked the system. Furthermore, we are told that the employees who received high ratings were very satisfied with the system.

It follows that if the company's best-performing employees also received high ratings, then these same people—the best-performing employees—were very satisfied with the system. This would make it reasonable to conclude that the best-performing employees liked the system.

A. The argument does not address the issue of whether the existing performance-rating system is the best available. Rather, it draws a conclusion about the existing performance-rating system based on specific data generated by the system.

B. Correct. Assuming that the company's best-performing employees received high ratings enables the personnel director's conclusion to be logically drawn.

C. This choice describes an association between ratings and satisfaction, rather than an association between performance and ratings, or between performance and satisfaction. The information given in the argument is compatible with the claim that all employees were at least somewhat satisfied with the system.

D. This choice assumes that employees who are rated highly by a system will like that system, but that assumption is more general than anything assumed in the argument. This choice addresses employees' attitudes to a performance-rating system based on the ratings they receive under that system. However, it does not address any association between ratings, performance, and attitudes to the system.

E. Employees' satisfaction with a performance-rating system might well play a role in motivating employees. However, the issue of motivation figures neither explicitly nor implicitly in the reasoning of the personnel director.

The correct answer is B.

unraveled · Answer

The catch lies in the lines ' employees who received high ratings were very satisfied  with the system. The personnel director concluded from these data that the company's  best-performing employees liked  the system' especially the highlighted part.

There is difference between a normal employee and best-performing employee. 
Option B fills that place and bridges the gap. Took me while to realize that.

MikeScarn · Answer

Assumption  
 Premise : Highly rated people are satisfied with the system
 Conclusion : Best performing employees like the system
 Gap :  Are the highly rated employees the best-performing employees? What if the best performing employees didn't get high ratings?

Out of Scope

Correct. Perfectly in line with my pre-thought

Irrelevant. We're not concerned with low rated employees.

Nice trap answer . This assumption does not relate to the  conclusion . This is related to the premise.

Irrelevant. We're not concerned with motivation.

kornn · Answer

Dear  IanStewart   GMATGuruNY   MartyTargetTestPrep ,

Is D. wrong because of it talks about the future, whereas the conclusion relates to the past?

D.  Employees who receive high ratings from a performance-rating system WILL like that system.

IanStewart · Answer

No, D is wrong because it's just not an assumption here.

We have the fact: high-rated employees like the rating system
We have the conclusion: the best-performing employees like the rating system

The fact isn't even relevant to the conclusion unless "high-rated employees" and "best-performing employees" are the same thing. So that's the assumption, and that's why B is right.

When studying CR (this is more true for CR than for SC, since process of elimination can be more useful on SC), it's more important to understand why the right answer is right than it is to understand why the wrong answers are wrong. They're often wrong simply because they're irrelevant (and not, as is true in SC, because there's a readily identifiable error in them).

mba757 · Answer

High rated employee = satisfaction w/ system. Conclusion says – from that data, best-performing employees = like system. Best-performing and high rated – are these the same? Did these best-performing employees ALSO receive high ratings? Performing the best and receiving a high rating are NOT one in the same. Correlation maybe but not causation. If you’re very satisfied, do you like the system? There are some logical leaps. The first one definitely a bit more pronounced.

A. No other performance rating system is as good as the current system.
 Conclusion is “from these data that the company's best-performing employees liked the system.” We’re not worried about other systems. Trap answer if you’re not paying attention!

B. The company's best-performing employees received high ratings.
 Money. So this sheds light on the logical leap described above. These best-performing are the same as the high rated people or they just also received high ratings. Probs the right answer, but keep going.

C. Employees who received low ratings were dissatisfied with the system.
 Low ratings dissatisfied? Trap. We’re not told this. We’re told high rating = satisfaction. And best-performing like it. We need to bridge the gap between best and high.

D. Employees who receive high ratings from a performance-rating system will like that system.
 Trap. Two things that seem off: (1) why are we concerned about high ratings and liking. We want to know if high and best are one in the same or one leads to the other and (2) that system; this seems vague. Regardless though, B sheds the best light.

E. The company's best-performing employees were motivated to perform well by the knowledge that they would receive performance ratings.
 Story/real world trap. Sure this could be true in the real world. But this doesn’t affect our conclusion. We want to bridge the knowledge gap and verbalize outright are the best performing somehow related to the highly rated?

Sneha2021 · Answer

GMATNinja 
 KarishmaB

Why D is incorrect?
D. Employees who receive high ratings from a performance-rating system will like that system.

GMATNinja · Answer

The question asks which answer choice the director's conclusion assumes. That means we're looking for a required assumption -- something that MUST be true in order for the conclusion to hold up.

Here's (D):
 
(D) is very broad -- it says that ALL high-rated employees under ANY system will like that system.

The personnel director doesn't HAVE to assume that this broad statement is true in order to reach his/her conclusion. It is enough to assume that high-rated employees ONLY at this particular company like the system. The director doesn't particularly care whether this trend holds true at other companies.

Because we aren't required to assume (D) for the conclusion to hold up, eliminate (D).

Compare that to (B):
 
The director bases his/her conclusion that the  best-performing  employees liked the system after interviewing the  highest-rated  employees.

But what if the highest-rated employees are not, in fact, the best employees? What if there are some awesome employees who are rated poorly for some reason?

That would completely destroy the argument. We NEED to assume that the best-performing employees received high ratings in order for the conclusion to hold up.

(B) is the correct answer.

I hope that helps!

stackskillz · Answer

This is the solution I came up with:

Conc: 
A company's personnel director surveyed employees about their satisfaction with the company's system for awarding employee performance ratings. The survey data indicated that employees who received high ratings were very satisfied with the system.  The personnel director concluded from these data that the company's best-performing employees liked the system.

A.  No other performance rating system is as good as the current system  - "Ths is the best performance rating system." Good copywriting.. Yes. Good answer... No. The personnel directors conclusion need not assume that this is the best rating system on the planet/universe. It can be the second-best but still be liked by the best-performing employees.  Drop

B.  The company's best-performing employees received high ratings.  - Let's the say the best performing employees didn't receive high ratings. Then the employees who were satisfied with/liked ratings system were not best-peforming. As such this would break the conclusion of the personnel director.  Keep

C.  Employees who received low ratings were dissatisfied with the system.  - May be, may be not. But doesn't support the personnel director's conclusion that the rating system was a hit among his best-performing employees. This is probably an example of false dichotomy, i.e., if employee with poor ratings didn't like the system, then employee with high rating would definitely like it. Something like "If it's not X, then it's defintely Y" type of thing. Not the case here.  Drop

D.  Employees who receive high ratings from a performance-rating system will like that system.  Though it hurts to say, the personnel director's conclusion might not be true IRL. Employees who recieve high ratings -  need not be  - the company's best performing employees. Like all things in life, systems can be gamed.  Drop

E.  The company's best-performing employees were motivated to perform well by the knowledge that they would receive performance ratings.  - This could partially be a reason to create a performance rating system. However, does it answer the question - "Do the company's best performing employees like the system?" Not really. It does answer the question - "Did it motivate company's best performers?".  Drop

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