A light bulb company produces 2,000 light bulbs per week. The manager

Question

A light bulb company produces 2,000 light bulbs per week. The manager wants to ensure that standards of quality remain constant from week to week. The manager, therefore, suggests that the company reject 500 of the 2,000 light bulbs it produces each week.

Of the following, the best criticism of the manager’s plan is that the plan assumes that

(A) light bulb manufacturers cannot market every light bulb that they produce

(B) the overall quality of the light bulbs would not be improved if the total number of light bulbs produced were reduced

(C) each light bulb that is reviewed is worthy of being reviewed

(D) it is difficult to judge the quality of a light bulb

(E) the 1,500 light bulbs that are accepted will be of the same quality from week to week

sudeep · Accepted Answer

IMO E..

A light bulb company produces 2,000 light bulbs per week. The manager wants to ensure that standards of   quality remain constant   from week to week. The manager, therefore, suggests that the company reject 500 of the 2,000 light bulbs it produces each week.

So manager is concluding that 1500 remaining bulbs will be of 'constant' quality. Criticism will be the manager's assumption that 1500 bulbs' quality will not wary from week to week. Hence E.

subratam99 · Answer

A light bulb company produces 2,000 light bulbs per week. The manager wants to ensure that standards of quality remain constant from week to week. The manager, therefore, suggests that the company reject 500 of the 2,000 light bulbs it produces each week.

Of the following, the best criticism of the manager’s plan is that the plan assumes that

(A) light bulb manufacturers cannot market every light bulb that they produce
(B) the overall quality of the light bulbs would not be improved if the total number of light bulbs produced were reduced
(C) each light bulb that is reviewed is worthy of being reviewed
(D) it is difficult to judge the quality of a light bulb
(E) the 1,500 light bulbs that are accepted will be of the same quality from week to week

Premise one : 
A light bulb company produces 2,000 light bulbs per week.

Premise two:
The manager wants to ensure that standards of quality remain constant from week to week.

Claim:
The manager, therefore, suggests that the company reject 500 of the 2,000 light bulbs it produces each week.

A : This is irrelevant. The argument doesn't talk about marketing of light bulb. 
B: The argument is not about improvement of the quality of the bulb. This argument is about constant quality of bulb week after week.
C: Some kind of rhetoric statement, not related with the argument. 
D: If it is true then It is also difficult to judge all 2000 bulb then reject all 2000 bulb. Why only 500 bulb ?
E: This is the right answer, as the argument is about same quality.

Answer is E.

bgphelps · Answer

Since this specific answer hasn't been touched on much, can someone help me find out where I have gone wrong in my reasoning?

When I answered this question I chose answer D. I chose it because the criticism I made of the manager's decision before looking at the answers was that '500 is an arbitrary number. Why can't we just test each light bulb on its own merit?'.

Answer D:  The managers plan assumes that 'it is difficult to judge the quality of the light bulb'  matches that criticism because if it were easy to judge the quality of the light bulbs there would be no problem in testing all of them and not arbitrarily getting rid of 500 light bulbs. That is to say, if it were easy to judge the quality of the light bulb then maintaining standards of quality week to week wouldn't be an issue.

Answer E correctly criticises the manager's assumption that quality would stay the same on a week to week basis just because only 1,500 light bulbs were selected, but doesn't answer the question 'why arbitrarily select 500 light bulbs instead of just testing each one on its own?' The best way to maintain consistency in quality would be to make sure that each light bulb is up to the company's quality standards. And once again, if it were easy to judge the quality of the light bulbs then this would be the best solution to the problem so D is a more encompassing answer than E.

To summarize. If a manager approached me with this plan I wouldn't ask him 'but how will you know that the 1500 you do select will be of the same quality from week to week?' but rather I would ask him 'Why can't we judge each light bulb we produce on its own merit and ensure through those standards that the quality is the same from week to week?'

I hope I've been clear in sharing my thoughts and I definitely appreciate the feedback. Apologies if this turns out to be convuluted.

ankurgupta03 · Answer

A light bulb company produces 2,000 light bulbs per week. The manager wants to ensure that standards of quality remain constant from week to week. The manager, therefore, suggests that the company reject 500 of the 2,000 light bulbs it produces each week.

Of the following, the best criticism of the manager’s plan is that the plan assumes that

(A) light bulb manufacturers cannot market every light bulb that they produce - 
 nothing related to market is talked about 
(B) the overall quality of the light bulbs would not be improved if the total number of light bulbs produced were reduced 
 this goes against the managers assumption 
(C) each light bulb that is reviewed is worthy of being reviewed 
 nothing talkied about being reviewed 
(D) it is difficult to judge the quality of a light bulb 
 this goes against the managers assumption 
(E) the 1,500 light bulbs that are accepted will be of the same quality from week to week 
 Correct

Only E gives a reason which manager would have assumed and which we can criticize, hence E

crackgmat2013 · Answer

(A) light bulb manufacturers cannot market every light bulb that they produce -  This is irrelevant because the argument doesn't focus on marketing of light bulb.

(B) the overall quality of the light bulbs would not be improved if the total number of light bulbs produced were reduced -  The argument does not talk about improvement of the quality of the bulb but talks about retaining the quality standard of bulb week after week.

(C) each light bulb that is reviewed is worthy of being reviewed -  Irrelevant

(D) it is difficult to judge the quality of a light bulb -  It should not be true because it says "difficult to judge the quality of  A  light bulb" ,its applicable to each and every light bulb. Manufacturing company should have to test it's product in order to insure its quality , it can not give excuse that " it is difficult to judge the quality".

(E) the 1,500 light bulbs that are accepted will be of the same quality from week to week -   It is the Correct answer choice  because the manager wants to ensure that standards of quality remain constant from week to week.

Answer is E.

Rohit23 · Answer

A. This is irrelevant. The argument doesn't talk about marketing of light bulb. 
B. The argument is not about improvement of the quality of the bulb. This argument is about constant quality of bulb week after week.
C. Choice C is some kind of rhetoric statement, not related with the argument. 
D. If it is true then It is also difficult to judge all 2000 bulb then reject all 2000 bulb.
E. This is the right answer, as the argument is about same quality. Hence, E is the answer.

jn0r · Answer

Official Answer
   
 Conclusion : The manager, therefore, suggests that the company reject 500 of the 2,000 light bulbs it produces each week.

Premise : A light bulb company produces 2,000 light bulbs per week. The manager wants to ensure that standards of quality remain constant from week to week.

Assumption : There’s no problem with the plan. There’s no problem with the manager’s plan to ensure that standards of quality remain constant from week to week by rejecting 500 of the 2,000 light bulbs the company produces each week.

The word assume in this question stem indicates that it is an assumption question. The argument contains a planning pattern, recognizable by the reference to a plan. The plan is to ensure that standards of quality remain constant from week to week, and the manager plans to achieve this by rejecting 500 light bulbs each week.

The standard assumption in a planning pattern is that there’s no problem with the plan. Since the question stem refers to a criticism, the correct answer will point out a problem with an assumption in the plan to ensure that standards of quality remain constant from week to week by rejecting 500 of the 2,000 light bulbs the company produces each week. Evaluate the answer choices.

Choice A: No. The choice is out of scope. The ability to market every light bulb is unrelated to the decision to ensure standards of quality.

Choice B: No. This choice is out of scope. A plan does not need to assume that other methods to achieve the same goal would not work.

Choice C: No. The choice is out of scope. Whether each light bulb that is reviewed is worthy of being reviewed is irrelevant to whether the plan will ensure standards of quality, as the argument does not present how the 500 rejected bulbs will be selected

Choice D: No. The choice is out of scope. If the manager’s plan assumes that it is difficult to judge the quality of a light bulb, then the manager has already taken such criticisms into account.

Choice E: Correct. This choice presents a problem with the plan. The plan assumes that by removing 500 bulbs, the quality of the other 1500 light bulbs will be consistent. This is not necessarily true, as it could be that more than five hundred light bulbs each week vary in quality.

The correct answer is choice E.

vedansh_411 · Answer

CORRECT ANSWER:E
By the process of elimination:

(A): A is not the correct answer as the passage has nothing to do with the selling or marketing of lightbulbs.

(B): B is a very tempting option, but it is ruled out as neither the manager's plan nor the passage talks about improving the quality of the light bulbs. They focus on mainting uniform quality.

(C):C does not have anything to do with the throwing out of the 500 bulbs as per the plan of the manager.

(D):If D were to be taken as the answer, the entire passage along with the manager's plan would have made no sense. As it assumes that a light bulb's quality cannot be judged.

(E):E is the correct answer as, E finds a flaw in the manager's plan,who took the assumption that the remaining 1500 bulbs are of the same quality. This assumption best weakens the plan of the manager.

THANK YOU.
-Vedansh Garg

Posted from my mobile device

aarensoriano · Answer

My Thought Process to CR Questions Like This 
Approaching this question requires one to

1) consider the situation: lightbulb company manufactures 2,000 units per week

2) analyze who is making a claim and what is the desired outcome: the manager wants to ensure standards remain consistent week to week.

3) identify the proposal: rejecting 500 lightbulbs will ensure standards are maintained.

4) extrapolate the assumption from answers that best align with the proposal:

A) marketing the lightbulb has nothing to do with manufacturing quality; thus irrelevant

B) completely disregards the claim and reasserts an irrelevant claim about the quantity of lightbulbs manufactured being decreased rather than the manager’s proposed plan of rejecting 500 out of the 2,000.

C) the manager’s plan has nothing to do with reviewing each lightbulb; the manager wants to reject 500 lightbulbs and not waste the company’s time or resources; thus irrelevant.

D) the manager’s plan includes nothing about the parameters and difficulties of judging the quality of a lightbulb; thus irrelevant.

Leaving the only appropriate answer as E

E) aligns with the proposal, effectively criticizes the claim, and makes one think that the manager’s plan is truly flawed.

hakzarif · Answer

Good strategy! 
I was wondering if it is difficult to judge the quality of a light bulb, then how can someone evaluate the samples at first place? Isn't it lead to option D as a correct answer?

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

Two problems with that:

1) Just because something is difficult to do does not mean it can't/won't be done. Many people do jobs every day that are difficult to do well!

2) If difficulty IS a problem, then D would not be an assumption. It would be a weakener! Don't let the wording of the question throw you. Yes, it's talking about a "criticism of the manager's plan." But the criticism is supposed to be that the plan  assumes  one of the answers. So we are still looking for an assumption. The author is not assuming that judging quality is difficult.

PriyanshuR · Answer

The quality remains constant and thus the quality of the 1500 light bulbs will have the same quality week after week.

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

That's the goal, not necessarily the outcome. The manager WANTS the quality to remain consistent, but the plan to achieve this result may not work. Our job is to determine what the manager has assumed (perhaps incorrectly) in concluding that the outcome of consistent quality will be achieved.

arushi118 · Answer

If one week the production is excellent and most bulbs are high quality, and the next week the production is bad, then simply rejecting 500 each time does not guarantee that the remaining 1,500 are equally good.
Quality depends on how good the bulbs actually are, not on how many get rejected.
That is exactly what E states.

egmat · Answer

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 
 UNDERSTANDING THE ARGUMENT 
 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Fact:  Company produces  2,000  light bulbs per week
 Goal:  Ensure quality remains  CONSTANT  from week to week
 Plan:  Reject  500  bulbs each week

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 
 IDENTIFYING THE FLAW 
 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The manager assumes:
Reject  500  bulbs → Quality of remaining  1,500  stays constant

But does rejecting a fixed NUMBER guarantee consistent QUALITY?

Consider this scenario:

Week 1:  Reject 500 bulbs → Remaining 1,500 are  EXCELLENT 
 Week 2:  Reject 500 bulbs → Remaining 1,500 are  TERRIBLE 
 Week 3:  Reject 500 bulbs → Remaining 1,500 are  MEDIOCRE

Same rejection count, completely different quality outcomes!

The plan confuses  quantity rejected  with  quality consistency .

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 
 ELIMINATING WRONG ANSWERS 
 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

(A)  manufacturers cannot market every light bulb they produce
→ About whether they CAN sell all bulbs
→  Irrelevant to quality consistency  ✗

(B)  quality would not improve if total production were reduced
→ Suggests an alternative approach
→  Doesn't address current plan's flaw  ✗

(C)  each light bulb reviewed is worthy of being reviewed
→ Confusing and vague
→  Not connected to the core issue  ✗

(D)  it is difficult to judge quality of a light bulb
→ This would be a problem FOR the plan
→  Not what the plan assumes  ✗

(E)  the 1,500 accepted bulbs will be of the same quality week to week
→  THIS IS THE FLAWED ASSUMPTION!  ✓

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 
 KEY TAKEAWAY 
 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

For "the plan assumes that" questions:

• Identify the  GOAL 
• Identify the  PLAN/METHOD 
• Find the  HIDDEN ASSUMPTION  connecting them

The flaw is usually: The plan assumes the method will achieve the goal, but  it doesn't necessarily .

Here:  Quantity rejected ≠ Quality consistency

Answer: E

A light bulb company produces 2,000 light bulbs per week. The manager

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GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

A light bulb company produces 2,000 light bulbs per week. The manager

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