V02-28

Question

Managing Director: In order to keep the competitive edge gained by our extensive research and innovative methods, information security must remain a high priority for our company. The information stored on our networks including everything from research data, to training materials, to company memos - could be very valuable to competitors. All employees must work to protect company information, not only through passwords, but also through the physical control of company assets, such as laptops.
 
Which of the following is an assumption necessary for the logic of the argument?

A. The company should install more effective anti-virus software.
B. Company information carries a high monetary value, making the network attractive to individual hackers.
C. The employees will follow the directions of the Managing Director.
D. Competitors may get access to company information if not adequately protected.
E. Other companies which have not taken information security seriously have suffered because of information leakage to competitors.

Bunuel · Answer

Official Solution:

Managing Director: In order to keep the competitive edge gained by our extensive research and innovative methods, information security must remain a high priority for our company. The information stored on our networks including everything from research data, to training materials, to company memos - could be very valuable to competitors. All employees must work to protect company information, not only through passwords, but also through the physical control of company assets, such as laptops.
 
Which of the following is an assumption necessary for the logic of the argument?

A. The company should install more effective anti-virus software.
B. Company information carries a high monetary value, making the network attractive to individual hackers.
C. The employees will follow the directions of the Managing Director.
D. Competitors may get access to company information if not adequately protected.
E. Other companies which have not taken information security seriously have suffered because of information leakage to competitors.

Premise:  “The information ....... could be very valuable to competitors.”
 
 Conclusion:  “ ...information security must remain a high priority for our company.”
 
The assumption is some additional information that would bridge the premise with conclusion.
 
A. This option could be a suggestion to implement the conclusion and hence is not an assumption to arrive at the conclusion from the premise.
 
B. This option is a strengthening statement for the suggestion forwarded by the managing director. If, in addition to the competitors, the individual hackers also are interested in the company information, then there is all the more necessity to implement information security in the company. However this statement is not a necessary assumption that bridges premise to conclusion. Even if the hackers are not interested in the company information, the argument would still be valid because the information would still be valuable for the competitors and hence needs to be protected.
 
C. Whether the employees would follow the Managing Director’s suggestion would determine whether the suggestion would be successfully implemented or not. However the actions of the employees have no role in the argument itself, i.e. they have no role in linking premise to conclusion.
 
 D. CORRECT.  This option fills in the gap in the Managing Director’s argument. He states that the information is valuable and then he concludes that the information must be protected. What he has not spoken out is the intermediate assumption, i.e. the competitors may get access to information if not properly protected and that’s why the information must be protected.
 
In other words if the competitors cannot get access to the information even if unprotected, there is no need to protect the information. Thus option D must be an underlying assumption to complete the argument.
 
E. Citing an example strengthens the argument but the example is not a mandatory assumption in the Managing Director’s argument. Even if there were no preceding examples, the argument would still hold good and hence this option is not an assumption.

Answer: D

Bunuel · Answer

The question or/and solution has been revised and edited. Thank you  sayantanc2k  !!!

joe123x · Answer

I think the answer should include something that indicates that "compititors are interested in the research of the company".

Oppenheimer1945 · Answer

KarishmaB , pls help in eliminating option C

bhavik29 · Answer

I choose C because it said : All employees must work to protect company information, not only through passwords, but also through the physical control of company assets, such as laptops.

If we negate this, doesn't the arugument fall apart?

anujy4445 · Answer

For option (C) in negation test, the conclusion will not fall apart as the conclusion states that "information security must remain a high priority for our company". No weather employees follow Managing director's directions or not it doesn't change the fact that information security remains the high priority.

Basically finding the right answer lies in finding the right conclusion. What you're concluding or relating your negation with isn't the right conclusion.

Basically finding the right answer lies in finding the right conclusion. What you're concluding or relating your negation with isn't the right conclusion.

pinkman27 · Answer

I think this is a  high-quality  question and the explanation isn't clear enough, please elaborate.

bb · Answer

I have updated the question prompt to make it clearer as to what the argument is about, making question easier in the process. New Prompt:  Which of the following is an assumption necessary for the logic of the argument?

In terms of why C is incorrect and how to eliminate it. It comes down to the argument being argued by the manager.

The argument is that our information is valuable and therefore security is important.

Does the manager assume that the employees will follow the memo, probably. The manager also assumes that the employees will read it and the manager also assumes that they can read - there are lots of generic assumptions but they are not focused on the argument, and that is the failure of the question prompt to properly focus attention on the argument by giving a generic assumption question prompt, thus C could have been an assumption made by the manager - that's not an incorrect statement but it is not related to the argument. Hope this helps restore some sanity.

Dbrunik · Answer

I think this is a  high-quality  question and I agree with explanation. D makes sense. this is a high quality question.

arnavghatage · Answer

I was confused between D and E.

The word that threw me off was "may" in option D.

Even if you negate it which makes it "may not", it doesn't seem to break the conclusion imo.

bb · Answer

Understandable. Every tool only goes so far. Things that work on simpler questions do not work on harder ones because if they did, these would not be harder questions.

Chakrawarty · Answer

I like the solution - it’s helpful. Good solution

HammeredDeepu97 · Answer

I did not quite understand the solution. I negated when I reached between option D and E. If we negate D it comes down to:- "Other companies which have not taken information security seriously have not suffered because of information leakage to competitors"

This weakens the conclusion "information security must remain a high priority for our company.”

Why is it D then?

bb

This weakens the conclusion "information security must remain a high priority for our company.”

Why is it D then?

bb

bb · Answer

Thank you  HammeredDeepu97  for the question and sorry about the wait in getting back with you.

Here are the answer choices D and E just in case as you seem to have referred to one but posted the other. Also, this is not a weaken question (I know you have a negation test) but in that case the argument has to fall apart, not just be weakened. (in some questions it is sufficient to weaken them but in others, it has basically go beyond the point of weakening and to the point of breaking)

D. Competitors may get access to company information if not adequately protected. 
 E. Other companies which have not taken information security seriously have suffered because of information leakage to competitors.

I don't think E. is a required assumption. This company can be the first one to suffer without any precedents. There is nothing in our argument about other companies or precedents, so that is another giveaway (right away) that it is outside of the scope of our argument, leaving us with D, a fairly basic assumption that is not very tricky but at the same time challenging because it is so basic.

Hope this helps. Let me know if any further questions.

V02-28

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards