A study showed that, across a variety of office jobs, upgrades in aest

This is only my day 2 of attempting CR questions. I took 2:44 to get to the correct answer.

Conclusion: sociologists hypothesize that full-time employees... see visual improvements in the offices as reflecting on the value of their own profession contribution.

Question type: Strengthen

Line of reasoning: Cause-Effect/Correlation
For full-time employees: Upgraded aesthetics --> Reflection of the value of their contribution

A) Irrelevant. It talks about ergonomic improvement, not aesthetics. And it talks about productivity, not employees' perception of their value. Thirdly, it talks about all employees whereas our conclusion is about full-timers alone.

B) Irrelevant. Perks of the job have nothing to do with upgrading aesthetics.

C) Trap! Sure, this option establishes that upgrading aesthetics improves full-timers' productivity. But our conclusion is not about productivity at all. Hence, this is not the correct answer.

E) Attractive option. A reasonable theory. Does strengthen the conclusion. Shortlist this.

D) We have to assume that the answer options are true--no matter how unrealistic they are--and then evaluate them. Read the conclusion. Now read option D again. Option D clearly establishes the correlation between aesthetics and employees' perception of their value to the company. This directly validates the main assumption of the argument and hence is the right answer.

If you are confused between D and E, here is why D is better: E says that office decoration implies that the company value employees but D says that decoration, as a matter of fact, is related to the employees' value. Fact > Implication, hence D > E.

(P.S. Please wish me luck for my GMAT!)