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I think the right answer is C.

Gap - The premise mention percentage but not any absolute number.

A. Out of scope since the premise did not talk about the quality of printing.
B. This gives the idea that printing load is equal but does not fill the gap
C. This option mentions that the no. of printers are equal within the surveyed companies which allows the premise to draw the conclusion
D. Weakener. It does not fill the gap
E. Irrelevant.
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In the question performances of the two printers are compared assuming the usage as same. This is highlighted in option- B. hence B is the answer
Bunuel
A survey of office managers who had acquired new printing equipment over the previous five years found that twelve percent of laser printers in use had needed servicing on more than one occasion, compared with just three percent of inkjet printers that had ever required any servicing at all. Offices that depend on uninterrupted access to printing should therefore expect far fewer workflow disruptions by choosing inkjet over laser printers.

Which of the following is an assumption the argument relies on?

(A) Inkjet printers do not produce noticeably lower print quality than laser printers for standard office documents.

(B) Offices that use laser printers are not far more likely to operate them at substantially higher print volumes over time than offices that use inkjet printers.

(C) At least as many offices in the survey had acquired laser printers as had acquired inkjet printers.

(D) Laser printers do not generally require longer periods of downtime for each service visit than inkjet printers do.

(E) Offices that acquired printing equipment within the past year are not far more likely to have chosen laser printers than offices that acquired equipment five years ago.

 


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The bottom-line is about service disruption
A. The quality of the printout is irrelevant
B. The volume of work does matter a lot because if the laser prints process significantly more to compensate for the breakdown then it won't make sense to change them
C. Office numbers are overshadowed by percentages
D. This is complete opposite hence incorrect
E. The question is not about acquisition time hence irrelevant
Ans B
Bunuel
A survey of office managers who had acquired new printing equipment over the previous five years found that twelve percent of laser printers in use had needed servicing on more than one occasion, compared with just three percent of inkjet printers that had ever required any servicing at all. Offices that depend on uninterrupted access to printing should therefore expect far fewer workflow disruptions by choosing inkjet over laser printers.

Which of the following is an assumption the argument relies on?

(A) Inkjet printers do not produce noticeably lower print quality than laser printers for standard office documents.

(B) Offices that use laser printers are not far more likely to operate them at substantially higher print volumes over time than offices that use inkjet printers.

(C) At least as many offices in the survey had acquired laser printers as had acquired inkjet printers.

(D) Laser printers do not generally require longer periods of downtime for each service visit than inkjet printers do.

(E) Offices that acquired printing equipment within the past year are not far more likely to have chosen laser printers than offices that acquired equipment five years ago.

 


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I was confused between B and C and chose B as the final answer because it bridges the gap b/w the premise (more Laser printers needing service) and the conclusion (Laser printers are not suitable for uninterrupted workflow). The assumption here is that if laser printers are used to print high volume of copies then they are overworked and hence need regular repairs more than the inkjet printers which are not used as much in comparison to Laser printers.

For option C, it is given in percentages and the quantity of these printers do not make a difference to the conclusion.
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I think option D is correct since it is the only option which related to the question about uninterrupted access to printing
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The evidence compares service rates with 12% of laser printers needed multiple service visits but only 3% of inkjet printers need any service.

The evidence is laser printers need more servicing. The conclusion is inkjets cause fewer workflow disruptions. Required assumption is laser printers aren't simply being used more heavily.

Answer B
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I believe the answer is B.

The argument is drawing a comparison between the amount of times servicing was needed for two different types of printers, inkjet, and laser. It concludes that because laser printers have a higher rate of servicing, offices should prefer inkjets in terms of availability / access.

However, this conclusion is based on a statistic about the rates of servicing. What if one is being used more than the other? Then it would not be a fair comparison. Answer B directly addresses that possibility. Try negating the statement to see if the argument holds.

If is it the case that offices that use laser printers are much more likely to operate them at higher print volumes, then it would not make sense to claim that inkjet is more reliable, as it may simply be the case that there is more wear/tear on them due to them being used more frequently.
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12 Laser printers out of 100 require service and 3 out 100 inkjet printers required negligible service.
In order for the conclusion to be drawn that there would be far fewer workflow disruptions in inkjet printers we need to equate their efficiency. Both shall be equally efficient.
A - quality is not talked about in this scenario -ELIMINATE
B - Negate this - offices that use laser printer are far more likely to print at substantially higher volume over time - this clearly destroys our bridge between evidence and conclusion - CORRECT
C - the stimulus talks about in percentage terms, so this option is misleading
D - Negate this: If laser printers require larger down times than ink jet printers, which rarely require any service at all, then this supports our conclusion
E - This is giving a real life scenario, and this would be irrelevant for us because it does not give appropriate assumption for: why inkjet printers give far fewer workflow disprutions
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B is the answer. If laser printers are used much more heavily, then their higher service rate could simply be due to heavier usage rather than lower reliability.
If we negate B, laser printers are operated at much higher print volumes, then the argument collapses and the comparison is no longer fair.
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For the conclusion to valid ,
Assumption: the higher service rate is not bacuase of higher usage.
Otherwise, it will not reflect lower reliability on laser printer ( greater need of servicing will be due to higher usage level)

A - Print quality is Irrelevent to the arguement
B - Similar to our assumption
C - Number doesn't matter (doesn't need to be equal), as data is given is percentage.
D - Longer period / lesser period of interruption doesn't matter, as arguement is about the frequency of disruptions.
E - Timing is irrelevent

Answer - B
Bunuel
A survey of office managers who had acquired new printing equipment over the previous five years found that twelve percent of laser printers in use had needed servicing on more than one occasion, compared with just three percent of inkjet printers that had ever required any servicing at all. Offices that depend on uninterrupted access to printing should therefore expect far fewer workflow disruptions by choosing inkjet over laser printers.

Which of the following is an assumption the argument relies on?

(A) Inkjet printers do not produce noticeably lower print quality than laser printers for standard office documents.

(B) Offices that use laser printers are not far more likely to operate them at substantially higher print volumes over time than offices that use inkjet printers.

(C) At least as many offices in the survey had acquired laser printers as had acquired inkjet printers.

(D) Laser printers do not generally require longer periods of downtime for each service visit than inkjet printers do.

(E) Offices that acquired printing equipment within the past year are not far more likely to have chosen laser printers than offices that acquired equipment five years ago.

 


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the answer is B.
A) is wrong since quality is out of scope

B) this means for the massive difference in the breakdown of laser printer substantial overuse is not a reason. thsi supports the conclusion. negating it we get, substantial overuse of laser is possible compared to inkjet use which weakens or causes doubt in the conclusion. hence this is right

c) whether or not offices equallly acquired to test the performance fo the laser vs inkjet is not relevant to the conclusion so not valid answer

d)this says laser wont take more time to service than inkjet. By negating we get lasers take more time than inkjet to service but conclusion still remains valid even so.

e) likelihood of choosing laser printer is out of scope to the conclusion
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If I wouldn't have attempted this kind of argument, similar in structure, in the past then I most probably would have selected the wrong answer.

Premise one: there was a survey conducted of office managers who got printing equipment over the last five years.
Premise two: the result of that survey is that 12% of laser printers need servicing once whereas only 3% of inkjet printers required any sort of servicing.

Therefore choosing inkjet printers will give comparatively fewer disruptions in offices from laser printers.

Now for an assumption question we need to bridge the gap of premise to the conclusion.

Pre thinking - What if we can't expect fewer workflow disruptions from inkjet printers over laser printers?
Maybe these servicing stats don't actually reflect the interruption occurrence in the offices. What if 12% of laser printer servicing is giving negligence interruptions to offices as compared to 3% of inkjet printers.

Now it's clear that we need to defend the argument from any possible alternative explanations that can derive the conclusion.
Bunuel
A survey of office managers who had acquired new printing equipment over the previous five years found that twelve percent of laser printers in use had needed servicing on more than one occasion, compared with just three percent of inkjet printers that had ever required any servicing at all. Offices that depend on uninterrupted access to printing should therefore expect far fewer workflow disruptions by choosing inkjet over laser printers.

Which of the following is an assumption the argument relies on?

(A) Inkjet printers do not produce noticeably lower print quality than laser printers for standard office documents.

(B) Offices that use laser printers are not far more likely to operate them at substantially higher print volumes over time than offices that use inkjet printers.

(C) At least as many offices in the survey had acquired laser printers as had acquired inkjet printers.

(D) Laser printers do not generally require longer periods of downtime for each service visit than inkjet printers do.

(E) Offices that acquired printing equipment within the past year are not far more likely to have chosen laser printers than offices that acquired equipment five years ago.

 


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A - Even if inject printers produce lower quality, it doesn't affect the argument of interruptions in the workflow.
B - Upon negating this option we realize that laser printers are being used in substantially higher print volumes compared to inkjet printers and that might be the cause of the given stats in the premises. The negation of this statement destroys our conclusion and hence this option defends our conclusion from any possible alternative explanation.
C - This is not a must-be statement because we already have the data of laser printers getting serviced compared to inkjet printers. This statement does not affect our argument.
D - Our argument doesn't depend on the duration of repair time. It depends on the occurrence of servicing with respect to the interruption in workflow.
E - Now the stats of last year of offices acquiring far more laser printers doesn't affect the argument's over all 5 years. Even if the offices chose laser printers last year, the premise of 12 % of all requiring services remains the same and hence doesn't affect our argument.
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Option B and D is confusing but duration of service is not the valid assumption of the argument as it is not implied anywhere
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A: Irrelevant, no mention of print quality
B: Correct ; more usage can also lead to more service rate
C: Irrelevant, percentages used for sample sizing
D: Incorrect, strengthens
E: Irrelevant, timing is not a factor
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The argument simply indicates that laser printers have low reliabilty while providing services and ink jet printer are much more reliable than laser printers without taking any confounding variable into account - like it is also possible that laser printers are much more used then ink jet printers by the employees thats why these need much more services than ink jet printers.

option B is just an asumption that supports the given argument otherwise whole arguments would be invalid if confounding variables were considered ( Like usage of laser printers are much more than inkjet printer)

ans is option B
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IMO, option C is correct and here are my thoughts about all options.

Option (A):
This statement talks about the print quality, which has nothing to do with disruption of the workflow as stated in the argument. The workflow will only be disrupted when the printer stops working and it needs servicing. Thus, option A is incorrect.

Option (B):
If the print volumes differ, the survey itself becomes questionable. If the load on laser printer is less, it will automatically stay in better condition and thus, will require less servicing. However, the survey states that more than 12% of laser printers had gone for servicing more than once. This clearly states that they require more maintenance than inkjets. Option B is incorrect.

Option (C):
This sounds promising. Only when the survey is done with equivalent amount (Or number/percentage) of both printers, can this survey hold true to its argument. So, option C is correct, IMO.

Option (D):
Clearly, no matter how much time servicing requires, the fact that it has stopped working proves that it disrupts the workflow. Option D is incorrect.

Option (E):
The survey tends to observe the issue at hand for a period of 5 years. So, this option is also incorrect.
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To be able to compare laser and inkjet both should have been used about the same, if laser were used more then of course they would have greater downtime. This is necessary.
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