Often when a highly skilled and experienced employee leaves one compan

Question

Often when a highly skilled and experienced
employee leaves one company to work for another,
there is the potential for a transfer of sensitive
information between competitors. Two basic principles
  (5)   in such cases appear irreconcilable: the right of the
company to its intellectual property—its proprietary
data and trade secrets—and the right of individuals to
seek gainful employment and to make free use of their
abilities. Nevertheless, the courts have often tried to
  (10)   preserve both parties’ legal rights by refusing to
prohibit the employee from working for the competitor,
but at the same time providing an injunction against
disclosure of any of the former employer’s secrets. It
has been argued that because such measures help
  (15)   generate suspicions and similar psychological barriers
to full and free utilization of abilities in the employee’s
new situation, they are hardly effective in upholding
the individual’s rights to free employment decisions.
But it is also doubtful that they are effective in
  (20)   preserving trade secrets.

It is obviously impossible to divest oneself of that
part of one’s expertise that one has acquired from
former employers and coworkers. Nor, in general, can
one selectively refrain from its use, given that it has
  (25)   become an integral part of one’s total intellectual
capacity. Nevertheless, almost any such information
that is not public knowledge may legitimately be
claimed as corporate property: normal employment
agreements provide for corporate ownership of all
  (30)   relevant data, including inventions, generated by the
employee in connection with the company’s business.

Once an employee takes a position with a
competitor, the trade secrets that have been acquired by
that employee may manifest themselves clearly and
  (35)   consciously. This is what court injunctions seek to
prohibit. But they are far more likely to manifest
themselves subconsciously and inconspicuously—for
example, in one’s daily decisions at the new post, or in
the many small contributions one might make to a large
  (40)   team effort—often in the form of an intuitive sense of
what to do or to avoid. Theoretically, an injunction also
prohibits such inadvertent “leakage.” However, the
former employer faces the practical problem of
securing evidence of such leakage, for little will
  (45)   usually be apparent from the public activities of the
new employer. And even if the new employee’s
activities appear suspicious, there is the further
problem of distinguishing trade secrets from what may
be legitimately asserted as technological skills
  (50)   developed independently by the employee or already
possessed by the new employer. This is a major
stumbling block in the attempt to protect trade secrets,
since the proprietor has no recourse against others who
independently generate the same information. It is
  (55)   therefore unlikely that an injunction against disclosure
of trade secrets to future employers actually prevents
any transfer of information except for the passage of
documents and other concrete embodiments of the
secrets.    1 
 1. Which one of the following most accurately expresses the main point of the passage?

(A) There are more effective ways than court injunctions to preserve both a company’s right to protect its intellectual property and individuals’ rights to make free use of their abilities.
(B) Court injunctions must be strengthened if they are to remain a relevant means of protecting corporations’ trade secrets.
(C) Enforcement of court injunctions designed to protect proprietary information is impossible when employees reveal such information to new employers.
(D) Court injunctions prohibiting employees from disclosing former employers’ trade secrets to new employers probably do not achieve all of their intended objectives.
(E) The rights of employees to make full use of their talents and previous training are being seriously eroded by the prohibitions placed on them by court injunctions designed to prevent the transfer of trade secrets.

2 
 2. Given the passage’s content and tone, which one of the following statements would most likely be found elsewhere in a work from which this passage is an excerpt?

(A) Given the law as it stands, corporations concerned about preserving trade secrets might be best served by giving their employees strong incentives to stay in their current jobs.
(B) While difficult to enforce and interpret, injunctions are probably the most effective means of halting the inadvertent transfer of trade secrets while simultaneously protecting the rights of employees.
(C) Means of redress must be made available to companies that suspect, but cannot prove, that former employees are revealing protected information to competitors.
(D) Even concrete materials such as computer disks are so easy to copy and conceal that it will be a waste of time for courts to try to prevent the spread of information through physical theft.
(E) The psychological barriers that an injunction can place on an employee in a new workplace are inevitably so subtle that they have no effect on the employee.

3 
 3. The author’s primary purpose in the passage is to

(A) suggest that injunctions against the disclosure of trade secrets not only create problems for employees in the workplace, but also are unable to halt the illicit spread of proprietary information
(B) suggest that the information contained in “documents and other concrete embodiments” is usually so trivial that injunctions do little good in protecting intellectual property
(C) argue that new methods must be found to address the delicate balance between corporate and individual rights
(D) support the position that the concept of protecting trade secrets is no longer viable in an age of increasing access to information
(E) argue that injunctions are not necessary for the protection of trade secrets

4 
 4. The passage provides the most support for which one of the following assertions?

(A) Injunctions should be imposed by the courts only when there is strong reason to believe that an employee will reveal proprietary information.
(B) There is apparently no reliable way to protect both the rights of companies to protect trade secrets and the rights of employees to seek new employment.
(C) Employees should not be allowed to take jobs with their former employers’ competitors when their new job could compromise trade secrets of their former employers.
(D) The multiplicity of means for transferring information in the workplace only increases the need for injunctions.
(E) Some companies seek injunctions as a means of punishing employees who take jobs with their competitors.

5 
 5. With which one of the following statements regarding documents and other concrete embodiments mentioned in line 58 would the author be most likely to agree?

(A) While the transfer of such materials would be damaging, even the seemingly innocuous contributions of an employee to a competitor can do more harm in the long run.
(B) Such materials are usually less informative than what the employee may recollect about a previous job.
(C) Injunctions against the disclosure of trade secrets should carefully specify which materials are included in order to focus on the most damaging ones.
(D) Large-scale transfer of documents and other materials cannot be controlled by injunctions.
(E) Such concrete materials lend themselves to control and identification more readily than do subtler means of transferring information.

6 
 6. In the passage, the author makes which one of the following claims?

(A) Injunctions against the disclosure of trade secrets limit an employee’s chances of being hired by a competitor.
(B) Measures against the disclosure of trade secrets are unnecessary except in the case of documents and other concrete embodiments of the secrets.
(C) Employees who switch jobs to work for a competitor usually unintentionally violate the law by doing so.
(D) Employers are not restricted in the tactics they can use when seeking to secure protected information from new employees.
(E) What may seem like intellectual theft may in fact be an example of independent innovation.

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Explanation

2. Given the passage’s content and tone, which one of the following statements would most likely be found elsewhere in a work from which this passage is an excerpt?

Explanation

Don’t get tangled up in the lengthy wording of this question; it boils down to asking with what, based on the passage, the author would likely agree. Unfortunately, we’re not given a specific reference to research in the passage, so we should attack the answers with our understanding of the author’s Topic, Scope, Purpose, and Main Idea. Doing so, we see that

(A)  follows naturally from the passage. The key phrase in  (A)  is the opening caveat— “given the law as it stands.”  In the last sentence of para 1, the author told us that the current law is ineffective to keep a company’s former employees from divulging its trade secrets. So, if you’re operating under the current law and you want to preserve your trade secrets, you’d probably better retain your employees.

(B)  Our author does not address alternatives and so doesn’t opine as to which method of handling this dilemma is  “most effective.”

(C)  Our author doesn’t give suggestions for how to improve the law; he stops at just criticizing it. For all we know, he might think that giving more enforcement power to former employers would be too restrictive on employees’ rights.

(D)  brings in far too much outside speculation. Moreover, this answer runs counter to our author’s assertion that the current law may be useful in concrete cases.

(E)  distorts what the author said in  Paragraph 3  about the subtle nature of information  “leakage”  and mixes it up with the criticism in Paragraph 1 that suspicion of wrongdoing can create psychological barriers to an employee’s full use and expression of her skills and knowledge.

Answer: A

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Explanation

4. The passage provides the most support for which one of the following assertions?

Explanation

Although worded differently than question 2, this is another Inference question without a specific reference clue in the stem. Again, we will begin by using our understanding of the author’s Topic, Scope, Purpose, and Main Idea to eliminate wrong answers and/or identify the correct choice. The correct answer,  (B) , amounts to a paraphrase of the Main Idea. The author uses the bulk of the passage to explain the dilemma facing courts trying to balance the interests of former employees and former employers and concludes by saying that the current law is unlikely to be much of a solution.  (B)  may, at first blush, seem strongly worded, but the qualifier  “apparently”  acts to keep the answer from being too Extreme.

(A)  is Outside the Scope of the passage—the author doesn’t offer any opinion on what should trigger injunctions—and the word “only” should make us suspicious that the view expressed in this answer doesn’t fit with our author’s rather neutral Purpose.

(C)  This answer is Extreme. Certainly, the author considers the opportunity for former employees to use their skills and talents for new employers to be a legitimate interest.

(D)  This is a typical distortion answer. According to the author, the multiple ways of transmitting information make injunctions of questionable efficacy. The author is silent on the question of whether it increases the need for injunctions.

(E)  Out of Scope. The author never hints at a retributive function for injunctions.

Answer: B

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Explanation

6. In the passage, the author makes which one of the following claims?

Explanation

Here’s a relatively rare Detail question lacking any specific referent reading clues. The challenge to this kind of question is to choose the one answer that actually comes directly from the text of the passage and not talk ourselves into justifying one of the wrong answer choices. Usually, there will be an answer or two that you can immediately recognize as Out of Scope or a 180, but the others may require direct research in the passage. A good Roadmap is your greatest research tool. To add one more layer of difficulty to this question, the test makers placed the correct answer last. We can see that  (E)  is correct, though, by referencing  lines 48–52 , where the author details the difficulties in distinguishing independent invention from improper disclosure.

(A)  The author makes no claim that the injunctions make it harder for an employee to find work with a new employer. The injunctions are mechanisms by which courts try to balance the interests of the employee and the former employer.

(B)  This answer distorts the author’s claim that injunctions are more likely to work when applied to cases involving documents and concrete materials  (lines 57–59) , but the author doesn’t say that those are the only cases in which injunctions are necessary.

(C)  Here, the answer distorts the author’s claim that when trade secrets are disclosed, it’s more likely to be unintentional than conscious on the part of the employee  (lines 36–37) , which is a far cry from this answer’s claim that whenever someone goes to work for a competitor, they’ll probably wind up breaking the law.

(D)  This answer may strike us as Extreme (“are not restricted” is pretty sweeping), but a careful read shows that it’s just Out of Scope. The author never discusses what the new employer may or may not do to try to persuade their new employee to divulge their old employer’s secrets.

Answer: E

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Explanation

3. The author’s primary purpose in the passage is to

Explanation

In this passage, we need something fairly neutral; our author is trying to  “show,”  or  “point out,”  or (as the correct answer would have it)  “suggest”  that the current law doesn’t solve the dilemma. Both  “argue”  and  “support”  from answers  (C) ,  (D) , and  (E)  seem a bit too strong for this passage. Of the two answers that begin with  “suggest,”  only  (A)  truly gives a global answer, describing both sides of the dilemma our author wrestled with throughout the passage.

(B)  is not only too narrow and detail focused to be the correct answer to a Global question, but also distorts what the author had to say about documents and concrete disclosures.

(C)  The author neither addresses what could be done to resolve the dilemma, nor makes any plea for us to find solutions.

(D)  The author stays focused on his critique of the current law; he doesn’t say we should abandon the  “concept”  of protection.

(E)  If anything, our author is suggesting that injunctions are not sufficient to prevent leakage of trade secrets. Since the author doesn’t opine on what would work, we cannot determine whether he thinks injunctions would be needed as part of the solutions or not.

Answer: A

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Explanation

5. With which one of the following statements regarding documents and other concrete embodiments mentioned in line 58 would the author be most likely to agree?

Explanation

Even when the question provides a specific detail clue or line reference (and here we have both), having the author’s Purpose in mind can help us make perfect predictions to questions that ask with what the author would  “most likely agree.”  Checking the sentence that contains the reference in line 58, we see that “documents and other concrete embodiments” are mentioned as exceptions to the author’s conclusion that injunctions won’t prevent the transfer of sensitive information. To phrase that affirmatively, the author believes that injunctions are more likely to work in cases involving  “documents and other concrete embodiments.”  Using that as our prediction,  choice (E)  is the only match.

(A)  For our author, the mode of transferring the information is irrelevant to the amount of harm the disclosure causes to the former employer.

(B)  is another irrelevant comparison. The author never provides hierarchy of which sources are likely to be more or less informative.

(C)  The detail here—specificity of materials enjoined—is Out of Scope. Even more telling, the tone of policy recommendation (what injunctions “should” do) doesn’t follow from our author’s discussion of documents and concrete materials.

(D)  is a 180. Documents are the source of information most likely controlled by injunctions. The author doesn’t qualify this statement based on the size of the document transfer.

Answer: E

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