Events & Promotions
|
|
GMAT Club Daily Prep
Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.
Customized
for You
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
Apr 2610:00 AM EDT
-11:00 AM EDT
The Target Test Prep course represents a quantum leap forward in GMAT preparation, a radical reinterpretation of the way that students should study. Try before you buy with a 5-day, full-access trial of the course for FREE!
Apr 2711:00 AM EDT
-12:00 PM EDT
Prefer video-based learning? The Target Test Prep OnDemand course is a one-of-a-kind video masterclass featuring 400 hours of lecture-style teaching by Scott Woodbury-Stewart, founder of Target Test Prep and one of the most accomplished GMAT instructors
Apr 2808:00 AM PDT
-11:00 AM PDT
Whether you are just beginning your MBA journey or fine-tuning your path to a 700+ score, GMAT Day is designed to give you a competitive edge.
29 Aug 2019, 04:38
Kudos
Bookmarks
D
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!
Difficulty:
85%
(hard)
Question Stats:
50% (02:03) correct
50%
(02:06)
wrong
based on 310
sessions
History
Date
Time
Result
Not Attempted Yet
Flexibility is as important as speed when expectations change at the drop of a hat. Nonetheless, in their zeal for efficiency, some organizations have engineered out all the slack they can from their businesses at the expense of agility. As Tom DeMarco wrote in his book Slack, 'An organization that can speed but not change direction is like a car that can speed but not steer. In the short run, it makes lots of progress in whatever direction it happened to be going. In the long run, it’s just another road wreck.’
Which of the options below conveys the main idea of the paragraph best?
(A) Business should be flexible enough to change as and when they want
(B) Those organizations that are not very efficient can adapt to change very well.
(C) Business processes without slack will slow down an organization’s progress.
(D) Reducing slack to zero can cost businesses their adaptability to change.
(E) Too little slack in organizations is as bad for innovation as too much slack.
Which of the options below conveys the main idea of the paragraph best?
(A) Business should be flexible enough to change as and when they want
(B) Those organizations that are not very efficient can adapt to change very well.
(C) Business processes without slack will slow down an organization’s progress.
(D) Reducing slack to zero can cost businesses their adaptability to change.
(E) Too little slack in organizations is as bad for innovation as too much slack.
29 Aug 2019, 04:53
Kudos
Bookmarks
EncounterGMAT
For inference questions (if you're not familiar with the type of questions, I recommend POWERSCORE CR to get familiar since this will be very important with CR), we need to remain within the scope of our passage, and never go out of it.
The only option that meets this criteria is (D)
29 Aug 2019, 23:12
Kudos
Bookmarks
SOLUTION:
Hint: In Main point questions, you have to rephrase the conclusion.
Conclusion: some organizations have engineered out all the slack they can from their businesses at the expense of agility.
(A) Business should be flexible enough to change as and when they want
INCORRECT. It is pretty much rephrasing the premise.
(B) Those organizations that are not very efficient can adapt to change very well.
INCORRECT. This is not what the paragraph says. The paragraph argues against super-efficiency in organizations. But to say that lack of slack can reduce flexibility is not the same as saying that an organization has to be inefficient to adapt to change “well”.
(C) Business processes without slack will slow down an organization’s progress.
INCORRECT. This sentence talks of business processes without slack “slowing down” an organization’s “progress”. The paragraph given doesn’t talk of organizational “progress”. In fact, it argues against cutting down slack in order to increase speed and efficiency.
(D) Reducing slack to zero can cost businesses their adaptability to change.
CORRECT. This paragraph argues that organizations that engineer out all the slack from their businesses in order to become super-efficient do so at the expense of their flexibility and adaptability to change. Option (D) sums up this idea well.
(E) Too little slack in organizations is as bad for innovation as too much slack.
INCORRECT. This option can also be ruled out, as it brings in a new idea: innovation. The paragraph only mentions flexibility, agility and ability of organizations to meet expectations that can change at the drop of a hat.
Hint: In Main point questions, you have to rephrase the conclusion.
Conclusion: some organizations have engineered out all the slack they can from their businesses at the expense of agility.
(A) Business should be flexible enough to change as and when they want
INCORRECT. It is pretty much rephrasing the premise.
(B) Those organizations that are not very efficient can adapt to change very well.
INCORRECT. This is not what the paragraph says. The paragraph argues against super-efficiency in organizations. But to say that lack of slack can reduce flexibility is not the same as saying that an organization has to be inefficient to adapt to change “well”.
(C) Business processes without slack will slow down an organization’s progress.
INCORRECT. This sentence talks of business processes without slack “slowing down” an organization’s “progress”. The paragraph given doesn’t talk of organizational “progress”. In fact, it argues against cutting down slack in order to increase speed and efficiency.
(D) Reducing slack to zero can cost businesses their adaptability to change.
CORRECT. This paragraph argues that organizations that engineer out all the slack from their businesses in order to become super-efficient do so at the expense of their flexibility and adaptability to change. Option (D) sums up this idea well.
(E) Too little slack in organizations is as bad for innovation as too much slack.
INCORRECT. This option can also be ruled out, as it brings in a new idea: innovation. The paragraph only mentions flexibility, agility and ability of organizations to meet expectations that can change at the drop of a hat.
