Secret passwords are often used to control access to computers. When

Question

Secret passwords are often used to control access to computers. When employees select their own password , they frequently choose such easily guessed password as their initials or birthdates. To improve security, employers should assign randomly generated passwords to employees rather than allowing employees to make up their own.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the conclusion drawn above?

(A) If passwords are generated randomly, it is theoretically possible that employees will be assigned passwords that they might have selected on their own.

(B) Randomly generated passwords are so difficult for employees to recall that they often record the passwords in places where the passwords could be easily seen by others.

(C) Computer systems protected by passwords are designed to ignore commands that are entered by employees or others who use invalid passwords.

(D) In general, the higher the level of security maintained at the computer system, the more difficult it is for unauthorized users to obtain access to the system.

(E) Control of physical access to computers by the use of locked doors and guards should be used in addition to passwords in order to maintain security.

ChiranjeevSingh · Answer

Clearly, B is the answer since it provides us the reason why "security will not be improved" by randomly generating passwords.

- CJ

imtiaz009 · Answer

Secret passwords are often used to control access to computers. When employees select their own password , they frequently choose such easily guessed password as their initials or birthdates. To improve security, employers should assign randomly generated passwords to employees rather than allowing employees to make up their own.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the conclusion drawn above?

1)If passwords are generated randomly, it is theoretically possible that employees will be assigned passwords that they might have selected on their own. 
-- Hypothetical --what are the chances - not known

2)Randomly generated passwords are so difficult for employees to recall that they Often record the passwords in places where the passwords could be easily seen by Others 
--- It will fail the purpose of the security. Correct answer

3)Computer systems protected by passwords are designed to ignore commands That are entered by employees or others who use invalid passwords. 
-- Irrelevant to the argument
4) In general, the higher the level of security maintained at the computer system, the more difficult it is for unauthorized users to obtain access to the system. 
--- Irrelevant
5)Control of physical access to computers by the use of locked doors and guards should be used in addition to passwords in order to maintain security
-- Irrelevant

hsbinfy · Answer

just do a pre-thinking first after you have read the argument for 5-10 seconds and see how you can undermine before reading the answer choices.

i guess you will find it easily to nail it

At first pre-thinking might take more time ..but once you are well verse ur success rate will increase.

i don't find any choice other than B that weakens

MartyMurray · Answer

Secret passwords are often used to control access to computers. When employees select their own password, they frequently choose such easily guessed password as their initials or birthdates. To improve security, employers should assign randomly generated passwords to employees rather than allowing employees to make up their own.

The conclusion of the argument is the following:

To improve security, employers should assign randomly generated passwords to employees rather than allowing employees to make up their own.

The support for the conclusion is the following:

When employees select their own password, they frequently choose such easily guessed password as their initials or birthdates.

We see that the reasoning of the argument is basically that, by assigning randomly generate passwords to employees, employers will improve security because randomly generated passwords will be harder to guess than employees' passwords would be if the employees were to create them.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the conclusion drawn above?

This is a Weaken question, and the correct answer will show that, even though it may be true that randomly generated passwords are harder to guess, randomly generating passwords may not serve to improve security.

(A) If passwords are generated randomly, it is theoretically possible that employees will be assigned passwords that they might have selected on their own.

This choice is tempting because it could seem to indicate that randomly generated passwords are not necessarily any different from passwords created by employees on their own.

So, what we have to notice about this choice is that the fact that it is theoretically possible for a randomly generated password to be the same as the password an employee would have created does not mean that, in general, randomly generated passwords will in fact be the same as passwords employees would have created. After all, something that is theoretically possible can still be very unlikely. In this case, even if this choice is true, it is unlikely that, in general, randomly generated passwords will be the same as passwords employess would have selcted on their own.

So, even if this choice is true, it's still likely that, at least in most cases, randomly generated passwords will be different from and harder to guess than passwords employees would have created.

Thus, even if this choice is true, the argument still works.

Eliminate.

(B) Randomly generated passwords are so difficult for employees to recall that they often record the passwords in places where the passwords could be easily seen by others.

This choice is interesting.

After all, if this choice is true, then even though randomly generated passwords are harder to guess than employee-created passwords, randomly generating passwords may not serve to improve security. After all, if randomly generated passwords are so difficult for employees to recall that they often record the passwords in places where the passwords could be easily seen by others, then even though they are hard to guess, unauthorized users may get ahold of and use them because they are relatively easy to see.

Thus, this choice shows that the improvement in security achieved through randomly generating hard-to-guess passwords may be offset by the decline in security resulting from recording of randomly generated passwords where they can easily be seen.

So, this choice casts doubt on the conclusion, weakening the argument.

Keep.

(C) Computer systems protected by passwords are designed to ignore commands that are entered by employees or others who use invalid passwords.

If anything, this choice strengthens, rather than weakens, the argument by indicating that having strong passwords serves to improve security by preventing people without passwords from affecting computer systems.

Eliminate.

(D) In general, the higher the level of security maintained at the computer system, the more difficult it is for unauthorized users to obtain access to the system.

This choice has no effect on the strength of the argument.

After all, the argument is about HOW TO improve security while this choice is about THE EFFECTS OF improving security.

Eliminate.

(E) Control of physical access to computers by the use of locked doors and guards should be used in addition to passwords in order to maintain security.

This choice has no effect on the strength of the argument.

After all, regardless of what else should be used to maintain security, generating passwords randomly may or may not serve to improve security.

Eliminate.

Correct answer:  B

Secret passwords are often used to control access to computers. When

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Secret passwords are often used to control access to computers. When

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