Official Explanation
(1) Identify the Question
Because the task is to find the strongest support for the argument, this is a Strengthen the Argument question.


(2) Deconstruct the Argument
A medical software company has staffing issues, particularly among its programmers. Employee surveys suggest that if the programmers had larger offices and higher salaries, they’d stay longer. Even so, the author concludes that giving the programmers what they want would only make the understaffing situation worse.

Here is one possible way to map the argument.

Progs understaffed

Progs want more space, more $$$

© more space, more $$$ à staffing worse


(3) State the Goal
The argument’s conclusion currently has no support. The correct answer should explain how doing something that would appear to improve the staffing situation would actually make that situation worse.


(4) Work From Wrong to Right

(A) This choice suggests that the surveys overstate the degree to which giving programmers more money and more office space would reduce the staffing problem. However, this information doesn’t explain how doing something beneficial for the programmers would actively make the staffing problem worse.

(B) CORRECT. If making things better for the programmers would reduce the company’s number of managers, then the company’s overall staffing problems could be worsened even if the programmer positions stayed filled.

(C) This choice offers an irrelevant comparison. Other medical software companies may or may not have comparable staffing issues.

(D) If anything, this choice weakens the argument by suggesting that programmer office space is indeed a serious issue. In that case, improving the office space would be more likely to reduce the understaffing problem than to aggravate it.

(E) This choice suggests that the staffing problem is not really a problem—at least, not from a financial perspective. Nevertheless, the focus of the argument is on the results of a particular plan to fix the staffing shortage, not on the results of the shortage itself. Whether this shortage has caused financial problems is beside the point.