If the needle on an industrial sewing machine becomes badly

Question

If the needle on an industrial sewing machine becomes badly worn, the article being sewn can be ruined. In traditional apparel factories, the people who operate the sewing machines monitor the needles and replace those that begin to wear out. Industrial sewing operations are becoming increasingly automated, however, and it would be inefficient for a factory to hire people for the sole purpose of monitoring needles. Therefore a sophisticated new acoustic device that detects wear in sewing machine needles is expected to become standard equipment in the automated apparel factories of the future.

Which one of the following is most strongly supported by the information above?

(A) In automated apparel factories, items will be ruined by faulty needles less frequently than happens in traditional apparel factories.
(B) In the automated apparel factories of the future, each employee will perform only one type of task.
(C) Traditional apparel factories do not use any automated equipment.
(D) The needles of industrial sewing machines wear out at unpredictable rates.
(E) As sewing machine needles become worn, the noise they make becomes increasingly loud.

Economist · Accepted Answer

D for me.
Only if they wear out at unpredictable rates, an automatic machine is required to 'detect' the problem. If this was predictable then the needles could be automatically replaced and there was no need to have a special apparatus to detect the wear.

bsv180985 · Answer

Vote for B.
If people could combine different task there will be no need to hire a person who detect niddle wear out. This could be done by already existant person.

speeddeamon · Answer

My ans is D.
If the rate of wear can be predicted, there is no need for monitoring.

gurpreet07 · Answer

IMO D......

if the rate is predictable, the essence of automated equipment to monitor the needles is not required.

gmattokyo · Answer

(D) The needles of industrial sewing machines wear out at unpredictable rates.

Thatswhy a sophisticated acoustic device is needed. Otherwise a periodic replacement would have been fine.
Not E because there is no mention that worn out needles produce higher level of noise (maybe the device just detects some disruptions in continuity).

BM · Answer

Option D is the best answer. If needles wore out at predictable time intervals, then there would be no need for workers or machines to monitor them.

hien48 · Answer

I go for D. 
A, B, C, E are unconvincing therefore they must be eleminated, leaving D.

TGC · Answer

(A) In automated apparel factories, items will be ruined by faulty needles less frequently than happens in traditional apparel factories.
(B) In the automated apparel factories of the future, each employee will perform only one type of task.
 
Why not (B).Although it works as an assumption, it also strengthens the argument by stating that each person can perform only one task so there is no use of keeping one person just for this task.

(C) Traditional apparel factories do not use any automated equipment.
(D) The needles of industrial sewing machines wear out at unpredictable rates.
(E) As sewing machine needles become worn, the noise they make becomes increasingly loud.

Plz Advice !!!

Pyus · Answer

Hi, (my first post

) With the onset of automated factories, the traditional work of sewing will be performed by machines. So, the only remaining work left will be monitoring and replacing worn out needles. This work can be performed in following two ways - 1. Human intervention - The comprehension mentions this as an unfavorable situation since the person would be just monitoring the condition of needles (single item of work) 2. Machines - This would be favorable outcome as it will achieve the purpose of automation. Now, you should be able to see that B) is out of sync with the comprehension. It invokes a wrong context. Hope this helps.

mikemcgarry · Answer

We want to know which of the five answer is " most strongly supported by " the passage. In other words, what's the most justified conclusion we can draw? We know they are bring in " a sophisticated new acoustic device ", which suggests the change in the needles will be detected via some sort of sound. But, do we know that it's a loud sound? Or, does the worn out needle change its sound in some other way, such as a higher pitch frequency or something like that. In a way, the fact that the need a " sophisticated " device suggests that the change in sound might be something unapparent to the ordinary ear. We certainly do not have evidence that the needles get " increasingly loud " as they wear out. That's why (E) cannot be correct. Does that make sense? Mike :-)

hoangyenle · Answer

Hi Mike Can you help to explain why B is incorrect. I'm not really satisfied with all the explanation above. B) " Industrial sewing operations are becoming increasingly automated , however, and it would be inefficient for a factory to hire people for the sole purpose of monitoring needles ." ==> Paraphrasing: In the automated apparel factories of the future , each employee will perform only one type of task . Hence, I think B is correct D)The needles of industrial sewing machines wear out at unpredictable rates. The premises just stated that "the people who operate the sewing machines monitor the needles and replace those that begin to wear out" without mentioning about the unexpected rate. It is possible that at the expected rate , we still need worker to monitor and replace the needles?? Thanks

YL

plumber250 · Answer

Hi YL,

Let me see if I can take that one.

In the sort of question that this is 'support'. What I generally advise is to work out what the paragraph is saying in simple terms and then do 2 things.

1) Work out if each option choice is talking about the same thing (often choices are irrelevant.

2) If it is relevant, work out if it supports or goes against the paragraph.

In this example:

The paragraph says:
-Worn needles ruin clothes.
-People used to operate the machines and check for this themselves
-Now the factory is automated, it is not cost efficient to employ someone for one task
-So the solution is a new bit of technology.

Option B says:
- In the automated apparel factories of the future, each employee will perform only one type of task

or in simple terms, in automated factories, everyone does only one type of job.

My analysis:

I would call this irrelevant. The question is about one particular factory and one particular task, this talks about factories in general and 'each' employee. You can't extrapolate from the one to the other.

In addition, it's not clear that even if you ignore this, that B supports the passage. Where does it say in the passage about employees only doing one thing? It simply says they can't do one particular job in a cost effective manner.

I hope that helps.

James

vards · Answer

Hello, as per the passage,v can say that the shift to automated machiner is bcz the traditional method of monitoring is not cost efficient... there can bean exception to opt.D... theres no mention of consistency of the needles wearing out...it may happen that needles might be wearing out in predictable time,bt since use of workers in that situation is not cost efficient,the firm has shifted to machinery...so this option D might be true bt not essentially true.. please help me out with this

Amit1408GMAThunk · Answer

It was clearly between the options B and D.

Option B is cancelled out as first and foremost in an automated sewing factories, we dont know as to whether they are hiring human employees and if hired, what type of a job is been done by each one of them.

As it is clearly mentioned that in the stimulus that there is monitoring required in order to check whether the needles are worn out or not, then we can infer that 
the needles become worn-out at unpredictable times.

Hope the above explanation helps.

Thanks!

pradeepgontla · Answer

I've seen some one asking why not B, Let me explain why B is a wrong answer.

- We clearly know the traditional industries don't have a automated sewing machine, Consider a situation where traditional industry has an automated machine for some other use apart from sewing then this option will not stand.

NeoNguyen1989 · Answer

D IMO.

If the needles wear out at predictable rate, the industrial operations would not need the device to detect the worn out needles; rather, they will change the needles at a frequency.

E is very close. However, the fact that the factories need sophisticated acoustic device mean that the noise is not a recognisable loud level; rather, the noise might be at high pitch frequency that normal ears can't detect.

VerbalBot · Answer

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If the needle on an industrial sewing machine becomes badly

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