Junior biomedical researchers have long assumed that their hirings and

The passage describes a belief held by junior biomedical researchers that "their hirings and promotions depend significantly on the amount of their published work." This belief is contradicted by the fact that the people actually in charge of hiring and promoting biomedical researchers are "influenced much more by the overall impact that a candidate's scientific publications have on his or her field than by the number of those publications."

Take another look at the question stem:

This is not a typical "weaken" question, in which we would use an answer choice to weaken the argument in the passage -- instead, we need to use the information in the passage to argue against an answer choice.

With this in mind, let's go through the answer choices:

Going back to the question stem, we need to ask: does the information in the passage argue against this answer choice?

From the passage, we know that the people responsible for hiring and promoting junior biomedical researchers are influenced by the impact of a candidate's publications on his/her field when making hiring or promotion decisions. This seems to support the idea that researchers "just beginning their careers" need to have already published works of significance in order to get hired.

It could also be the case that "junior biomedical researchers" are not quite the same population as researchers "just beginning their career." If this is the case, then the passage does not give any information either way on the expected impact publications of researchers just beginning their careers.

Either way, the passage certainly does not argue against the statement in answer choice (A), so it can be eliminated.


The passage tells us that both junior biomedical researchers and the people who hire and promote these researchers believe some aspect of published works to be important in the hiring and promotion process.

Notice that answer choice (B) does not mention the hiring or promotion process -- it is a statement about the importance of a contribution in general, not just in regards to hiring/promotion decisions. The passage simply does not give us any information about the significance of works outside of the hiring/promotion process, whether those works are published or not. Based on this, you can't say that the information in the passage argues against this answer choice. (B) is out.


From the passage, we know that both junior biomedical researchers and the people who hire and promote these researchers believe some aspect of published works to be important in the hiring and promotion process. However, the passage does not give us information on what the people responsible for hirings/promotions think about "not-yet-published work." It is entirely possible that not-yet-published work "sometimes" plays a role in the hiring or promotion process. So, we cannot conclude that the information in the passage argues against the idea that "the potential scientific importance of not-yet-published work is sometimes taken into account" in hiring or promotion decisions. We can eliminate (C).


We know from the passage that the people responsible for hiring or promoting biomedical researchers are influenced by the impact of a candidate's publications on his or her field. However, we have no way of knowing how "fair" these assessments of impact are -- maybe there is an objective way of assessing impact, or maybe it depends entirely on how the hiring manager happens to feel that day. Because the passage does not address fairness, we cannot conclude that it argues against this answer choice. (D) is out.


The people responsible for hiring/promotion decisions are influenced more by the impact of published works than the number of published works.

If biomedical researchers "fragment[ed] their research findings so that they are published in several different journals instead of one," they would increase the number of publications, but would not change the impact of their research findings.

So, fragmenting their research findings would not substantially increase their chances of promotion. The information in the passage clearly argues against the statement in answer choice (E), so this is our answer.

I hope that helps!