Baker-Perez Engineering specilizes in microelectronics. The company

Question

Baker-Perez Engineering specilizes in microelectronics. The company has traditionally focused on printed circuit board designs, but is hoping to expand into sensor networks and embedded systems. Baker-Perez is cutting its staff of engineers by 10 percent. To ensure that the company’s ability to produce high-quality products is impacted as little as possible by the staff cuts, consultants recommend that Baker-Perez lay off the most recent hires, who are the least familiar with the company’s products.
Which of the following, if true, casts the most doubt upon the consultants’ rationale for selecting staff to lay off?

A. Other companies that focus on printed circuit board designs have already begun to move into sensor networks and embedded systems.
B. If Baker-Perez has to invest significant resources into employee training, it could fall behind on new trends in technology.
C. Colleges and universities only recently began to offer embedded systems as an area of focus
D. At Baker-Perez, employees must work for at least three years before they are fully vested
E. Baker-Perez currently allocates no more funds to research and development than other microelectronics companies do.

TaN1213 · Answer

Clear C.
We need to weaken that firing the recent hires is not a good idea in light of the expansion that the company desires. C gives the reason why recent hires will actually be helpful asset at this point of time.

siddyj94 · Answer

GMATNinjaTwo   mikemcgarry

Can you please intervene here and clarify how is Option C weakening the conclusion?

I was able to eliminate all the options as they were not weakening the conclusion, which is "laying off the new employees is a good start".

Please can you help in identifying how is Option C worst of all?

Prethinking - Something which can give us an reason not to fire the new employees as they can be an asset to the firm if they could turn in some profit or are excellent in their field?

Option C - If the colleges have recently introduced this field, this means they are still in the learning phase and they are expendable.

Thanking in advance.

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear siddyj94 , Thank you for asking a thoughtful question. I'm happy to respond.

Here's (C). C. Colleges and universities only recently began to offer embedded systems as an area of focus . Think about this carefully. First of all, this is an " area of focus ," not a side course, so the recent graduates had the option to learn this material in a deep way. Think about anything that was an " area of focus " in your undergrad: by the time you graduated, presumably it was something you knew well. The fact the " area of focus " might have been introduced, say, the year before you started to focus on it has no bearing on how well you would learn it. The " recently " refers when the colleges & universities started offering this possibility of studying embedded systems in depth. Recent grads had the option to study embedded systems in depth, but before this, the folks who graduated, say, 10+ years ago might have learned little or nothing about embedded systems in their undergraduate education. We don't know about the details here in the prompt, but in general, the tech world is a fast moving world, and what is the hot technology today might be something that was unknown 5-10 years ago, so someone who graduated last year might have been able to study this new stuff, but not someone who graduated 10 year ago, because the new technology didn't exist them. It's perennially true in the tech world that to be younger is to have an edge of some kind. Thus, the recent grads may well have learned the most up-to-date stuff about embedded systems in their undergraduate coursework, so it's not necessarily true that they would be the most expendable. Does all this make sense? Mike

siddyj94 · Answer

mikemcgarry  - As usual your explanations are crystal clear and crisp.
Now i can see that C is the best of all.

Thank you

Sent from my iPhone using GMAT Club Forum

chesstitans · Answer

this question is from ready4gmat, a reliable source.
the pattern is common and important.
boil down to C and D.
C gives the reason why such lay-off is impossible, D just tells about a fact in which employees become protected by the new proposal.

poul_249 · Answer

For C to weaken the conclusion, we must assume that all recently hired employees are fresh graduates. However, it is nowhere mentioned . A recently hired employee may not be a fresh graduate from such college/uni.. In that way it will not matter to the company even if the company lay them off.. Could someone please explain.

Hatakekakashi · Answer

Consultant recommend that Baker-Perez lay off the most recent hires, who are the least familiar with the company’s products.

Now to cast doubt, we must select an option, which says that the new hires are actually beneficial

A - no effect 
B - this does the opposite. It strengthens the rationale
C - if this is true then laying off the new hires is weakened
D - this is similar to B
E - no effect

C

VerbalBot · Answer

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Baker-Perez Engineering specilizes in microelectronics. The company

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