Bunuel
One way in which companies can increase their productivity is by making use of telecommuting. Many office workers waste a lot of time in their cars or other modes of road transport every morning trying to reach office, and a lot of them spend their day attending video conferences and typing emails, activities which could easily be carried out from the comfort of their homes. So it makes sense for companies to encourage their employees to use telecommuting services and work from home rather than travel to the office every day.
In order to evaluate the above argument, it would be useful to determine each of the following EXCEPT:
(A) Whether the cost of telecommuting will more than offset the increased productivity that comes about from its use.
(B) Whether the day to day work of most companies involves physical interaction amongst their employees.
(C) Whether a large part of the work of an average employee can be conducted using telecommuting services.
(D) Whether the use of telecommuting service will lead to increased revenues for the companies adopting this service.
(E) Whether the general traffic situation is likely to dramatically improve in the future.
Official Explanation
Answer: D
Let’s look at each of the options and check whether it is relevant to the argument.
(A) Relevant. If there is no cost benefit of telecommuting, then companies may not want to make use of it.
(B) Relevant. If employees’ work requires physical interaction then telecommuting may not make sense.
(C) Relevant. If most of an employees’ work entails coming to the office then it may not make sense to use telecommuting.
(D) Irrelevant. Even if the revenues remain the same, the cost could go down because of telecommuting leading to increased profits from the same revenue base. So it does not matter whether the revenues go up or not.
(E) Relevant. If the traffic situation improves dramatically in the future, then it might take care of the problem associated with coming to work.