Official Explanation

Each employee description must be checked to see if it meets the criteria for a verbal warning, but not for a written reprimand: accumulating at least 3, but fewer than 4, unexcused absences within a 365-day period. The employee described in the first option had 4 unexcused absences, but no more than 2 of these occurred within a single 365-day period, so the employee did not qualify for a verbal warning. Likewise, the employee in the second option did not qualify for a verbal warning: the employee reduced the absence on 13 May 2010 from a full day to half a day by staying late and working an extra hour, and thus had only \(2\frac{1}{2}\) absences during the 365-day period beginning 13 May, and no more than 2 absences within any other 365-day period. In the third option, the 4.5-hour absence on 19 March 2010 counts as a full day’s absence and is not offset by the extra hour because it was not worked on the same day. Therefore, the employee in the third option had exactly 3 unexcused absences in the 365-day period beginning on 19 March 2010—enough for a verbal warning, though not a written reprimand.

In the fourth option, the employee was absent between 10 minutes and 2 hours on 15 and 19 September, between 2 hours and 4 hours on 13 and 18 September, and more than 4 hours on 16 September. Thus, in that single 365-day period, the employee accumulated (2)(1/3)+(2)(1/2)+1, or \(2\frac{2}{3}\), total absences, which falls just short of 3 absences and thus does not qualify for a verbal warning.

In the fifth option, during the 365-day period beginning on 7 July 2010, the employee had a 3-hour (half-day) absence, a 2.5-hour (half-day) absence, two all-day (full-day) absences, and a 5-hour (full-day) absence, for a total of (2)(1/2)+(2)(1)+1, or 4 absences. This employee meets the criteria for a verbal warning, but also for a written reprimand, and hence the fifth option is not a key.

The correct answer is Absent 4.5 hours on 19 March 2010; stayed one hour late on 20 March 2010; absent all day on 8 February 2011 and 9 February 2011; arrived 40 minutes late on 17 April 2011.


As noted in the analysis above, the employee in the fifth option meets the criteria for both a verbal warning and a written reprimand, and hence the fifth option is the key. Also by the previous analysis, the employees in the first, second, and fourth options do not meet the criteria for verbal warning and hence cannot meet the criteria for written reprimand. While a verbal warning is warranted in the third option, the employee has fewer than 4 absences in a 365-day period and thus does not merit a written reprimand.

The correct answer is Absent 3 hours on 7 July 2010; absent 2.5 hours on 13 September 2010; absent all day on 31 January 2011 and 4 July 2011; absent 5 hours on 12 March 2011.