A significant number of Unitron Corporation’s department heads are due

Question

Which of the following most logically completes the argument?

A significant number of Unitron Corporation’s department heads are due to retire this year. The number of employees other than current department heads who could take on the position of department head is equal to only about half of the expected vacancies. Unitron is not going to hire department heads from outside the company or have current department heads take over more than one department, so some departments will be without department heads next year since Unitron will not ______.

(A) raise the minimum qualifications an employee must have to be promoted to department head

(B) promote any current department heads to higher managerial positions

(C) reduce the responsibilities of each department

(D) have any manager who are currently senior to the department heads appointed as department heads

(E) reduces the average number of employees per department

The Question is the same as an old gmat CR question. What makes this one tough are the options.

DaenerysStormborn · Accepted Answer

I was confused between A and D.

But A says "have not raised the minimum qualification"- if it were "have not decreased the qualification"..then this option could have qualified as an answer.

tarunk31 · Answer

A significant number of Unitron Corporation’s department heads are due to retire this year. The number of employees other than current department heads who could take on the position of department head is equal to only about half of the expected vacancies. Unitron is not going to hire department heads from outside the company or have current department heads take over more than one department, so some departments will be without department heads next year since Unitron will not ______.

Here we need an option which will solve the problem of having more department head from within the company given the conditions in the argument.

A. raise the minimum qualifications an employee must have to be promoted to department head

We already have a shortage of department heads and if you raise the minimum qualification further it will only aggravate the situation. Eliminate.

B. promote any current department heads to higher managerial positions

That will mean more vacancies and further shortage of department heads. Eliminate.

C. reduce the responsibilities of each department

So what? It doesn't suggest the department with reduced responsibilities won't require a department head.

D. have any manager who are currently senior to the department heads appointed as department heads

Now this will solve the problem and should be the answer as we can have more departments heads to fill up from inside the corporation.

E. reduces the average number of employees per department

Similar to C. It doesn't suggest that department with fewer employees won't require department heads.

aniketm.87@gmail.com · Answer

Which of the following most logically completes the argument?
A significant number of Unitron Corporation’s department heads are due to retire this year. The number of employees other than current department heads who could take on the position of department head is equal to only about half of the expected vacancies. Unitron is not going to hire department heads from outside the company or have current department heads take over more than one department, so some departments will be without department heads next year since Unitron will not ______.

A. raise the minimum qualifications an employee must have to be promoted to department head
B. promote any current department heads to higher managerial positions
C. reduce the responsibilities of each department
D. have any manager who are currently senior to the department heads appointed as department heads
E. reduces the average number of employees per department

I get why D) is right, my doubt is regarding A)

Why is it wrong? Anyone care to clarify?

Thanks in advance

msk0657 · Answer

This is an Assumption based fill in the blank question.

We need to get what is unstated in the passage...

There is some Unitron Corporation’s department heads are going to retire next year. Unitron is not going to hire department heads from outside the company or have current department heads take over more than one department..This is the main point.. .if they are not going to hire from outside then it means that Unitorn must hire some person who is well aware of the department i.e he must be senior. . if such seniors go out of company then such department will not have any manager... Hence D is the correct option..

A. raise the minimum qualifications an employee must have to be promoted to department head ---> This option can't be correct because we need to logically fill the blank and before the blank we have  so some departments will be without department heads next year since Unitron will not  raise the minimum qualifications an employee must have to be promoted to department head.. Then we can observe the both statements are contracting.

If they raise the qualification then some one will come into manager position then how can we say that the department has no manager...

RaghavSingla · Answer

I was about to choose D when something stuck my mind and I went for C. Here are the 2 choices:

C. reduce the responsibilities of each department
D. have any manager who are currently senior to the department heads appointed as department heads

D is good but I had one possible solution in my mind...that the problem is because of more number of departments and few dept heads...what If the company decides to dissolve existing few departments? In that case, the leftover departments could be taken up by dept heads...

Choice C that I interpreted was something like ...some dept would be without dept heads next year...since unitron will NOT reduce the responsibilities of each department i.e. they will not dissolve any of the existing departments...

Can't this also be a possible answer? Or I interpreted the meaning of the word responsibilities too much ?

sayantanc2k · Answer

Test option C and D using negation.

Negate C: Unitron WILL reduce the responsibilities of some departments. Nonetheless Unitron will still require department heads, albeit with reduced responsibilities. Hence negating C does not solve the problem.

Negate D: Unitron WILL appoint senior managers as department heads. Thus negating D solves the problem.

Thus D is the correct answer.

Divyadisha · Answer

Conclusion of the question says that departments will be without department heads. The possible assumptions to reach this conclusion will be:-
1) No one from the company will be appointed as department head for those departments.
2) These departments will not be merged into other departments.

A. raise the minimum qualifications an employee must have to be promoted to department head.  So will the departments get their heads? 
B. promote any current department heads to higher managerial positions  How about head? 
C. reduce the responsibilities of each department  does that mean that the departments will be reduced? no  
D. have any manager who are currently senior to the department heads appointed as department heads  This is exactly what we are looking for. 
E. reduces the average number of employees per department  Reduction of employees in department does not mean reduction in department itself.

origen87 · Answer

I rejected A because:
It could be so that Unitron awards promotions to say people who have more experience than better qualifications or maybe Unitron promotes people only basis 'promotion turns-say 3 years'.

Considering all these factors the premise states that only limited people can be promoted,no new heads to be recruited and no sharing responsibilities. So we can pre think that to fill that vacancy only someone on top of the hierarchy can be fixed.

abrakadabra21 · Answer

Although D is the best, Only problem I have with D is :

The number of employees other than current department heads  who could take on the position of department head is equal to only about half of the expected vacancies. :The number of employees other than current department heads including everybody in lower hierarchy from current department heads and upper heirarchy from Current department head.

unitron can fill the vacancy

A. outside the company
B. current department heads take over more than one department
These two are out of scope as per the argument. SO what else??

C.  The number of employees other than current department heads that are identified for the opening  takes two department each as condition that current department heads can't take over more than one department is not applicable to  those.

what else??

D. any manager who are currently senior to the department heads appoint them as as department heads.  but the question is ( Did "The number of employees other than current department heads that are identified for the opening " not included that, because they are also employee of the company?)???

abhimahna · Answer

Although I didn't get your questions clearly, I will try giving some information based on what I understood.

Here, the argument states that there will be departments without any department heads.

We are given that "Unitron is not going to hire department heads from outside the company or have current department heads take over more than one department".

So, it implies the current employees who are not department heads could be promoted to department head. But author says "some departments will be without department heads next year since Unitron will not ______." => Our assumption is not going to happen. Hence, D is the BEST answer.

sayantanc2k · Answer

Your point is "almost"(!) valid. In the sentence " The number of employees  other than current department heads who could take on the position of department head is equal to only about half of the expected vacancies." refers to only the employees who are below in hierarchy and does not consider the fact that people higher in hierarchy may also take on the position. Ideally that could have been clarified in the question stem. However consider this way: if D is the correct answer then automatically it is implied that in " The number of employees ... " only people lower in hierarchy are considered since there is none suitable above (as per D). This is a case of an interesting cyclic logic; selecting answer D automatically eliminates the problem you mentioned !

vipulkhandelwal999 · Answer

b. promote any current department heads to higher managerial positions

Can some one explain why answer B is incorrect.

My prethinking - If any current head is promoted to a higher position , then some one else takes his position . So possibility of filling of position by a younger employee is eliminated.

Mansoor50 · Answer

my problem with D: the company does not have enough ppl to fill dept heads....isnt it safe to assume that they wd have even less ppl who are senior to the dept heads? besides....also, why would a company put higher level managers on lower level positions?

BrentGMATPrepNow · Answer

A student asked me to answer this question, so here it goes . . .

1) Read the question stem to determine the question type. 
Tricky!
With fill-in-the-blank questions, it's often difficult to determine the question type. 
The last sentence reads  Unitron is not going to hire department heads from outside the company or have current department heads take over more than one department, so some departments will be without department heads next year since Unitron will not ______.

IMO, this could be an Assumption question or a Strengthen The Argument question. 
It doesn't really matter here, since the outcomes are similar. 
If it's an Assumption question, then the correct answer choice is necessary to make the conclusion follow from the premises, and if it's a Strengthen The Argument question, then the correct answer choice helps to make the conclusion follow from the premises.

2) Read the argument and summarize the premises and conclusion
PREMISE: Several department heads will retire this year.
PREMISE: Number of qualified EMPLOYEES who could be dept heads = half of what's needed.
PREMISE: Unitron won't hire department heads from outside company.
PREMISE: A department head cannot handle more than one department
 CONCLUSION: Next year, some departments won't have a dept head

3) Try to identify what the correct answer might be (before examining the answer choices)
If no luck . . . start checking answer choices.

(A) raise the minimum qualifications an employee must have to be promoted to department head
Regardless of whether the question is an Assumption question or a Strengthen The Argument question, we can still use the NEGATION technique. 
The only difference is that, with an Assumption question, we need the negated answer choice to DESTROY the arguments, and with a Strengthen The Argument question, we just need the negated answer choice to HURT the arguments. 
 
NEGATION: Unitron WILL raise the minimum qualifications an employee must have to be promoted to department head
If we make it even harder to become a dept head, then there WILL be departments without a dept head
Since the negated answer choice actually HELPS the conclusion, we can ELIMINATE A

(B) promote any current department heads to higher managerial positions
NEGATION: Unitron WILL promote any current department heads to higher managerial positions
This would result in even fewer dept heads, which means there WILL be departments without a dept head
Since the negated answer choice actually HELPS the conclusion, we can ELIMINATE B

(C) reduce the responsibilities of each department
NEGATION: Unitron WILL reduce the responsibilities of each department
This does not harm/destroy the conclusion, since each dept will still need a dept head. 
ELIMINATE C

(D) have any manager who are currently senior to the department heads appointed as department heads
NEGATION: Unitron WILL have any manager who are currently senior to the department heads appointed as department heads
This means we're going to have a bunch of EXTRA people to become dept heads. 
This definitely hurts the conclusion that some departments won't have a dept head next year. 
KEEP D

(E) reduce the average number of employees per department
NEGATION: Unitron WILL reducesthe average number of employees per department
This does not harm/destroy the conclusion, since each dept will still need a dept head. 
ELIMINATE E

Answer: D

Cheers,
Brent

ovrup007 · Answer

Thanks GMATPrepNow for that elaborate solution. A quick question. One of the premise tells us that "A department head cannot handle more than one department". Isn't it quite possible that any manager who is currently senior to the department heads might be handling more than one department at a time? Given that, (D) still doesn't hold as a premise already states that a department head can handle only 1 department at a time.

BrentGMATPrepNow · Answer

It's possible that some seniors (employees that are ABOVE the department heads in the company hierarchy) might already serving as department heads, and it's possible that some senior are department heads for more than one department. 
Even if we have all of this, there are tons of vacancies expected for this year, and answer D says that no senior managers will be appointed as department heads. 
Since these people (seniors) cannot fill the upcoming vacancies, the conclusion that next year, some departments won't have a dept head is valid.

Does that help?

Cheers,
Brent

ovrup007 · Answer

Thanks!! That helps a lot.

sayan640 · Answer

Negate option D. If Unitron has any manager who is currently senior to the department heads appointed as department heads , then some departments in Unitron will not be without department heads...they will get their department heads. 
Conclusion can not follow after negating the statement.
Option D is the answer.
Pls give me kudo s if you liked my explanation.

kavach · Answer

Conclusion of the question says that departments will be without department heads. The possible assumptions to reach this conclusion will be:-
1) No one from the company will be appointed as department head for those departments.
2) These departments will not be merged into other departments.

A. raise the minimum qualifications an employee must have to be promoted to department head. So will the departments get their heads?
B. promote any current department heads to higher managerial positions How about the head?
C. reduce the responsibilities of each department does that mean that the departments will be reduced? no 
D. have any manager who are currently senior to the department heads appointed as department heads This is exactly what we are looking for.
E. reduces the average number of employees per department Reduction of employees in the department does not mean a reduction in the department itself.

A significant number of Unitron Corporation’s department heads are due

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A significant number of Unitron Corporation’s department heads are due

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