It is a mistake to give post office employees individual discretion as

Question

It is a mistake to give post office employees individual discretion as to when to inspect or open suspicious packages. If individual employees are allowed to open “suspicious” packages without first following a strict protocol, it is only a matter of time before all packages will arrive having already been opened due to some postal employee’s idle curiosity.

The conclusion above is based on which of the following assumptions?
(A) Postal service managers are the only people with the authority to open suspicious packages.

The conclusion above is based on which of the following assumptions?

A. Postal service managers are the only people with the authority to open suspicious packages.

B. Suspicious packages are indistinguishable from all other kinds of package.

C. The efficiency of the postal service will be greatly reduced if more packages are inspected.

D. There is currently no protocol in place for the inspection of suspicious packages.

E. Postal employees desire to open packages out of curiosity.

Source <v05>

pqhai · Accepted Answer

ANALYZE THE STIMULUS: The wording is quite convoluted, but the main idea is: Hypothesis: Individual employees open “suspicious” packages without first following a strict protocol probably because of postal employee’s idle curiosity. KEY word: “without first following a strict protocol” because: although there is strict protocol (it means the opening suspicious packages may not be necessary if the postal employees follow strict protocol), employees still want open the packages . Why? Because they are curious. Make sense

Conclusion: It is a mistake to give post office employees individual discretion as to when to inspect or open suspicious packages. Assumption: The first reason postal employees open suspicious packages is that they are curious. Or no other reasons make postal employees want to open suspicious packages. Negate the assumption to confirm: postal employees are not curious when they decide to open suspicious packages. ==> Cannot say “it’s a mistake to give them rights to open suspicious packages”. ANALYZE EACH OPTIONS: -Postal service managers are the only people with the authority to open suspicious packages. Wrong. Out of scope. Nothing about the right of “service managers”. -Suspicious packages are indistinguishable from all other kinds of package. Wrong. The fact that suspicious packages are indistinguishable or distinguishable does not affect “curious” employees, who want to open all suspicious packages (does not matter the packages are distinguishable/indistinguishable). Thus, B is not the assumption. -The efficiency of the postal service will be greatly reduced if more packages are inspected. Wrong. Out of scope. Nothing about “the efficiency”. -There is currently no protocol in place for the inspection of suspicious packages. Wrong. TEMPTING because of the wording, not of the meaning. The stimulus only says employees open “suspicious” packages without first following a strict protocol because of their curiosity. Let rephrase, although there is strict protocol (it means the opening suspicious packages may not be necessary if the postal employees follow strict protocol), employees still open the packages. Why? Because they are curious. Therefore, If there is no protocol, we do not know they are curious or not. . Hence, D cannot be the assumption. -Postal employees desire to open packages out of curiosity. Correct. As stated above. Hope it helps.

soumanag · Answer

IMO E.

Explanation::

Conclusion: It is a mistake to give post office employees individual discretion as to when to inspect or open suspicious packages.

Premise: If individual employees are allowed to open “suspicious” packages without first following a strict protocol it is only a matter of time before all packages will arrive having already been opened due to some postal employee’s idle curiosity.

Possible assumptions:
A strict protocol is already in place.
Employees are not allowed to open the packages unless they follow a strict protocol
All packages will seem suspicious 
Employees in general are curious
Options:
A) Postal service managers are the only people with the authority to open suspicious packages. -  Apply negation, service managers are not the only ones allowed to open packages, this does not affect the conclusion. 
B) Suspicious packages are indistinguishable from all other kinds of package. -  Not associated with main conclusion. Even if the two types can be identified, behavior of the employees is not going to change. 
C) The efficiency of the postal service will be greatly reduced if more packages are inspected. -  Out of scope. 
D) There is currently no protocol in place for the inspection of suspicious packages. -  Using negation, there is a protocol in place, it in fact strengths the argument. This can not be an assumption. 
E) Postal employees desire to open packages out of curiosity -  Using negation, employees are not curious therfore will not open the package, destroys the argument. This is the correct option.

skovinsky · Answer

For assumption questions, we want to deconstruct the argument: paraphrase the conclusion and evidence. Once we have done so, we then identify the missing link between the two.

In this case, the author concludes that it's a mistake to allow postal workers discretion regarding inspecting packages. Why? Because (so here comes the evidence...) curiousity and boredom will lead to all packages being opened.

What does the author have to be assuming to reach his conclusion based on his evidence? That postal workers do, in fact, want to know what's inside the packages.

So, armed with that prediction, we attack the choices looking for a match.

A) nothing about motivation to open packages - eliminate.
B) nothing about motivation to open packages - eliminate.
C) nothing about motivation to open packages - eliminate.
D) nothing about motivation to open packages - eliminate.
E) aha! Here's exactly what we predicted, we know (E) is correct.

Kaplan's denial test can be a very useful tool for assumption questions. If we weren't already convinced that (E) is correct, we'd consider the opposite of (E):

Well, if postal workers aren't curious, the author's argument makes no sense at all. Since the denial of (E) destroys the argument, (E) must be an essential element, the exact definition of an assumption.

SyedSan · Answer

Between B & E
 Premise:  If individual employees are allowed to open “suspicious” packages without first following a strict protocol,
 Conclusion1:  it is only a matter of time before  all packages  will arrive having already been opened due to some postal employee’s idle curiosity.
 Conclusion2:  It is a mistake to give post office employees individual discretion as to when to inspect or open suspicious packages.

Premise --> conclusion1 needs assumption B and no necessarily E.

B Suspicious packages are indistinguishable from all other kinds of package. if the packages are indistinguishable then employees are allowed to open  all packages .
E Postal employees desire to open packages out of curiosity. This is certainly an assumption but it's not an assumption on which argument depends - It doesn't imply that  all packages  will be opened due to some employee's curiosity. B direclty connects with argument that all packages would be opened coz they cannot distinguish.

Note:  Conclusion1 is more of inference than conclusion because it's direct consequence of 'IF' premise.

OA given is E, but I feel this questions is either wrong or at best ambigous.

Chembeti · Answer

I do not see anything wrong with the question and answer. (BTW, source is GMATClub, AFAIK)

Let us think that we need to decide to setup a police station at a town. What would be the basis? 
Is it enough to find that whether or not people at that town know what is crime and what is not crime?
Or is it required to know the crime rate?

Obviously the answer is to know the crime rate which is the measure of people behavior not their knowledge.

argha · Answer

Hi,

I have a question on option E, which I presume is the OA.

A basic tenet of Assumption question is "it" being not explicitly mentioned in the passage.

Curiosity as a trait is mentioned in the passage as the reason which leads to opening of suspicious packages.

How can then option E be correct?

Regards

Argha

pqhai · Answer

I think you're correct. An assumption, according to GMAT standards, has some characteristics:
- An assumption is a  hidden statement  which must be true for a conclusion to hold true.
- We  cannot t deduct an assumption  simply from given information because it has some new information.

Regards.

kinjiGC · Answer

I still don't agree with the OA. I guess there are two assumptions.

premise:If individual employees are allowed to open “suspicious” packages without first following a strict protocol, it is only a matter of time before all packages will arrive having already been opened due to some postal employee’s idle curiosity.
Conclusion : It is a mistake to give post office employees individual discretion as to when to inspect or open suspicious packages

So the postal employees will open the package if postal employees are allowed to open "suspicious" packages.

Option B) Suspicious packages are indistinguishable from all other kinds of package.
Negate option B) Suspicious packages are distinguishable from all other kinds of package.
-> That means the postal employees are able to distinguish suspicious packages from normal one and even if they are curious, not "ALL" packages will be opened.

Option E) Postal employees desire to open packages out of curiosity.
If we negate it, obviously the conclusion breaks.

I guess both Option E) and Option B) are assumptions.

hubahuba · Answer

Negate option B) Suspicious packages are distinguishable from all other kinds of package.
-> That means the postal employees are able to distinguish suspicious packages from normal one and even if they are curious, not "ALL" packages will be opened.

-> I was also confused initially but looking at it again, this is definitely not an assumption. Even if suspicious packages are distinguishable from all other kinds of packages, some idle postal employee can still open the package out of curiosity. You already mentioned this above. Going one step further, note that this set includes possibility that 'All' packages will be opened. Though unlikely, but still possible.

Negating 'All' should give us 'Not All' / 'Some'. But in this case, 'All' is also a possibility. Say for example there were 100 postal employees = All employees. Now negating will give us 1 to 99 (Not All/Some). However, in our case since it is possible that All 100 employees were curious, they can open All mails. Maybe because it's christmas and they are curious to see what gifts are in there.

RK84 · Answer

Why D is not an assumption? If there are protocols , then post office employees will stick to that and not get driven by their curiosity to unleash the packages.
If we negate both D and E, the conclusion fails. 
Can somebody please throw more reasoning light on this ?

sayantanc2k · Answer

D is an inference, not an assumption. One can infer D from the statement "If individual employees are allowed to open “suspicious” packages without first following a strict protocol", implying that currently there is no protocol.

I have already suggested in one of my posts that negation technique should be used as sparingly as possible (only when one is stuck betwen two choices in an assumption type question). It is easy to mistake an inference for an assumption, if the negation technique is used mechanically. Take any inference and negate it, you would always find that the conclusion breaks down.

Also note that an argument is NOT JUST about the conclusion. The correct assumption MUST LINK the premise and conclusion - an assumption is not just related to the conclusion.

samwui94 · Answer

I was hoping the answer would either be A or B but more strongly hoping for A. Why E???? Isn't E merely a repetition of what is stated in the premise?

sayantanc2k · Answer

The desire of the employees have not been discussed in the passage. Can you quote the line in the passage that you feel is repeated in option E? The last sentence of the passage never states that the workers desire to open (but assumes that the workers desire so.)

AMsac123 · Answer

Im having doubt with option B. When using negation i feel that is the corrct one.

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear Anazeer , I'm happy to respond. :-)

To be honest, my friend, I don't think this is a superb question. Here's my analysis. It is a mistake to give post office employees individual discretion as to when to inspect or open suspicious packages. If individual employees are allowed to open “suspicious” packages without first following a strict protocol, it is only a matter of time before all packages will arrive having already been opened due to some postal employee’s idle curiosity. The conclusion above is based on which of the following assumptions? (A) Postal service managers are the only people with the authority to open suspicious packages. This is out-of-scope. The new plan being discussed he would give everybody the authority, the discretion, to open packages. What's the current plan that would be replaced by this new plan? We don't know. This is irrelevant and wrong. (B) Suspicious packages are indistinguishable from all other kinds of package. Suppose (completely unrealistically!) that there were clear markings to distinguish suspicious packages, say, stickers such as "Bomb Contained-Please Ignore Ticking" or "Terrorists-R-Us" or something of that sort. Well, if the post office employees really had individual discretion to open whatever they want, there is nothing preventing them opening the perfectly safe packages just out of curiosity. This would make the new plan an even worse idea than it was before: if anyone could clearly tell the difference between safe vs. unsafe packages, why on earth would it make sense to give people discretion rather than simply tell them only to open the unsafe packages? Negating this actually strengthens the argument, so this is not an assumption. (C) The efficiency of the postal service will be greatly reduced if more packages are inspected. Efficiency is out of scope. This is wrong. (D) There is currently no protocol in place for the inspection of suspicious packages. It's unclear whether there is a protocol in place or not. Perhaps there is and no one follows it--we don't know. This is wrong. (E) Postal employees desire to open packages out of curiosity. It would be extremely hard to explain the conclusion without the curiosity-run-wild of the postal employees. What is unsatisfying about this as an OA is that there was no attempt to paraphrase. Rarely would an official question have an OA with wording so close to the conclusion of the argument: that makes this question too easy. This is not a terrible question, but it's not the best. It falls well short of the standards of the GMAT CR. Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

It is a mistake to give post office employees individual discretion as

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It is a mistake to give post office employees individual discretion as

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