Concerned about various forms of workplace harassment, a city attorney

I think this is not a good question. None of the answers focus on weakening the argument. Even option D, supports the premise of increasing number of complaints, the same may be as a result of the awareness created that the people are submitting false claims. Judging whether the complains are false or not is out of scope.

I guess everyone here has taken a very restricted view. From what I have read everyone has pointed out that the main purpose was to increase the complaints, however if these complaints are actually not valid or do not lead to persecution then that would mean that the complaints were false and hence not useful. Therefore, in my opinion the answer should be B as it clearly states that even though the number of complaints increased but the actual purpose to punish the offenders remains unfulfilled. Please help me understand where am I wrong here?

Hello,

Need some help here:

Conclusion:
The publicity campaign has therefore been successful, in that it has inspired more victims of workplace harassment to pursue their complaints.

This means author says campaigns have been successful. Why does he say so? Due to the campaign the victims (who already had complaints but did not pursue them) were encouraged to pursue their complaints.

Now Choice C:
Many individuals who have brought complaints within the past year were previously unaware that the behavior to which they had been subjected was regarded legally as harassment.

According to this choice C, the individuals did not even know that the behavior was categorized as workplace harassment. What the campaign did was to merely let them know that the behavior is categorized as harassment. Thus it points to a situation where increase may have happened due to the increased awareness (not due to increased confidence in pursuing the complaints).

Now I am aware that 'many' may not necessarily mean tripled. But still since we do not need a proof but a weakener, this statement seems to do the job.


Now Choice D:
The publicity campaign has emphasized the fact that there will be no legal reprisals or other negative consequences for complainants whose complaints are deemed false or invalid.

This just says that there will be no negative consequences for people who come up with a complaint. It does not say that many people turned up for complaining due to this. Assuming that some or even many people (so as to triple the number) came forward to complain because they thought even if they lie they won't be negatively impacted, is kind of a stretch.


This is why I rejected Choice D. Choice C is closer and weakens the conclusion. Choice D just points at an option that people have, but does not say the people actually turned up to report bogus complaints.

Could someone please explain where I am going wrong?

Regards,

Too many assumptions are needed to solve this. It's a poorly written question

We aren't concerned with specific types of harassment, the argument talks about harassment irrespective of the kind so A is out.
B is out of scope, the campaign was just about getting more and more people who have faced any harassment to come out and file their report. What happens after that is beyond the scope so B is out.
C is a strengthener so it's out.
D says people who file fake reports won't be punished so it means there's a possibility that the increased no. of reports might be due to more of fake ones than real ones and that weakens the conclusion.
E is irrelevant.
Hence D.

Hope it helps