In an attempt to improve the overall performance of clerical workers,

Question 1

The final results of the study are given in the last line of the first paragraph. These results include data on the "relationship between overall rating and individual elements of performance." The question asks which statement seemed most likely to be true before this final result was known. Thus, the preceding sentences with preliminary results are fair game, since they are not the final result.

Looking at the preceding sentences, we notice the following key statement: "there should have been a strong correlation between a monitored worker’s productivity and the overall rating the worker received."

The final results of the study actually contradict this statement, since they suggest that supervisors based their ratings on criteria other than productivity (i.e. attendance, accuracy, customer satisfaction). However, before this final result was known, it seemed that high performance ratings should correlate with high productivity.

I hope that helps!

In Question 3 - Option E says that the "overall rating corelated MORE HIGHLY with measures of accuracy". But the underlined porrtion uses the words "considerable weight", which means as equally important as productive.

Could someone please correct my thought process?

The posts in the below links provide explanations to question #3 in detail.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/in-an-attemp ... l#p2396926

https://gmatclub.com/forum/in-an-attemp ... l#p1177527

https://gmatclub.com/forum/in-an-attemp ... l#p2313872

Cheers

1. what is the main purpose of this passage
2. what is the primary focus of an organizational development
3. what is the strategies for managing conflict involves calls for a direct verbalizing of he conflict at hand

Time taken: 12 min 10 secs
5/5 correct, yay!
Indeed taking enough time to digest each question is the best way to get all questions right.

The clue to answering this question lies in the sentence that precedes the highlighted text.



Put simply, even though a strong correlation between productivity and overall rating was expected, in reality, supervisors gave more weight to other criteria. Hence, accuracy (other criteria) had more impact on the overall rating than productivity did.

I was unable to understand the contrast that was presented through the research, can anybody explain it in depth.

There's a lot going on in this passage! One thought is that there might not be a super-clean "contrast" here at all, and so trying to find that can make it tough to see what's really there.

To understand the overall point, first think about the purpose of each chunk of the passage. Because the first paragraph is so long, it's better to break it up into several chunks:

First, the author tells us about a goal: "to improve the overall performance of clerical workers." Then the author gives us a plan to accomplish this goal: "computerized performance monitoring and control systems (CPMCS) that record and report a worker’s computer-driven activities."

Next, the author dives into a study. This is probably the most confusing piece of the passage -- but before diving into the weeds, it's best to understand WHY the author has brought up the study in the first place. In the second sentence, the author tells us that the plan mentioned above "may not be having the desired effect." In other words, monitoring workers does NOT improve overall performance.

So, how exactly does the study show that monitoring doesn't improve performance? Well, it has to do with what people say they care about, versus what they actually think about when they rate their people. Monitored people and supervisors say that they care most about productivity, but at the end of the day they actually give ratings on a whole bunch of other factors. So, just monitoring productivity doesn't impact performance ratings as much as you'd expect. This is the overall point of including the study.

Then, in the last paragraph, the author explains why monitoring might not be that impactful.

I hope that helps!