Companies should eliminate paid sick days for employees. This strategy

Question

Companies should eliminate paid sick days for employees. This strategy would provide a disincentive for employees to take time off from work because of illness. The resulting decrease in absenteeism would have a positive effect on companies' overall performances.

Which of the following is an assumption required by the argument above?

A. Employees will stay at their companies regardless of changes to their benefits.

B. Employees use sick days for vacation or other recreational purposes.

C. If no paid sick leave were offered, fewer employees would take time off from work because of illness.

D. The benefits to companies' overall performance due to decreased absenteeism would benefit the employees as well as the stockholders.

E. The reduction on the number of paid sick days would affect all employees equally.

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Official Answer

C

amp0201 · Answer

Excellent question.

B, D and E can be eliminated since they are irrelevant to the argument.

Answer choice C is more like a conclusion rather than assumption. If you read carefully, if paid sick leaves are removed by company, fewer employees would take off from work  because of illness . That is basically a result if the company adopts this policy. Hence cant be an assumption.

Regarding A - If reduction in benefits of employees is not going to affect the downturn of employees, then as author have mentioned, company can increase the performance by eliminating paid sick leave.

If employees decide to leave company because of this strategy, it will affect the company performance in wrong sense. Hence A is a correct answer choice.

I hope my explanation is on track. Thank You.

Thanks,
Akhil M.Parekh

seekmba · Answer

For me it was between A and E becuase only those 2 options talk about the company as a whole. E says "reduction in the number of paid sick days" whereas argument talks about elimination of paid sick days.

only A remains.

only A remains.

nusmavrik · Answer

Thanks guys ! I picked this question from Princeton Review. I believe the OA should be A.

Negate C should destroy the argument - opposite of NONE is "one" or more.
Logical negative C . If ONE paid sick leave were offered, fewer employees would take time off from work because of illness. ----> This doesn't seem to destroy the argument. Hence cannot be the answer.

Hope you enjoyed the question :-D

GMATD11 · Answer

Pls correct the OA...........

kraizada84 · Answer

will go with A its negation makes the conclusion illogical

karun0109 · Answer

its C for me as A assumes employees cannot be replaced by equally/more productive emplyees

nishith17 · Answer

I doubt the vailidity of OA of this question as pointed out by many members on this forum. This question needs further discussion.  VerbalBot

jyotsna100 · Answer

Here we are talking about the resulting decrease in absenteeism resulting in a positive effect so A can not be the answer. We only care about the people who are employees so even if people left the company it would not affect the argument.

Nick90 · Answer

IMO C

For assumption ques , try to use negation method if you understand the conclusion .

Here conclusion is decrease in paid vacation will cause increase in productivity .(easier language)

X causes Y

One method : come up with option that weaken the conclusion

X not cause Y

Decrease in paid vacation does not cause the increase in productivity .

Here underlying assumption can be 1) employees who take vacation will keep on doing so even if there is decrease in paid vacation hours

By using defender assumption .

Opt C correctly weakens the " weaken assumption"

This correct answer

Kudos pls...

Sent from my Le X507 using  GMAT Club Forum mobile app

SouthCity · Answer

The OA is right in my line of reasoning. Here are some insights.
Conclusion - resulting decrease in absenteeism would have a positive effect in company's performance. Here the key words "would have" bring in cause and effect relationship in the conclusion itself. Note this is an assumption question and not a strengthen question. We always strengthen the conclusion in a strengthen question and this is not true for all assumptions question types.

Let me go one step ahead telling that a successful assumption can be a link itself between argument and conclusion. Here choice C nicely brings out this link. -> If No paid sick leave were offered, fewer employees would take time off from work because of illness.

Next broadly there are two kinds of assumptions. One type is active assumption where outside information is not allowed and one needs to think inside the box. This means we cann't bring in outside information unlike strengtheners can.However passive assumptions can be in the form of 'NOT' key word and bring in outside information. This problem is certainly not of passive assumption type, hence can be classified in active assumption category.

Answer A goes thru a lot of steps before it can even reach closer to conclusion. Let me explain. Benefits will decrease -> still employees will stay -> they will continue to perform at their predefined productivity levels -> company performance won't suffer.
I have never seen a problem being correct with so many logical steps.

Hence C is the correct answer

anje29 · Answer

I think option is C is already mentioned in the passage :\ , Experts please explain how C is correct

grv805 · Answer

I totally agree with your reply @anje29. Option C is a trap answer as it is a restatement.

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Khushalie · Answer

I have a different opinion - I think answer is C but ques needs a different sort of negation -

Actual option - If no paid sick leave offered, fewer employees would take time off from work because of illness

should be negated as below:
If paid sick leave offered, fewer(should be replaced by more) employees would take time off from work because of illness - this would now destroy the arguement. So, c is the correct answer. Can any one please confirm my understanding?

susheelh · Answer

Hello  abhimahna ,

This is a good question, but unfortunately, it is in the form of a screenshot and the answer is clearly marked. Can you please change this to Text format. For the ease of changing I have typed in the question here so that it can be copy-pasted.

Companies should eliminate paid sick Leaves for employees. This strategy would provide a disincentive for employees to take time off from work because of Illness. The resulting decrease in absenteeism would have a positive impact on companies' overall performances.

Which of the following is an assumption needed by the argument above?

A. Employees will stay at their companies regardless of change to their benefits.
B. Employees use sick days for vacation and other recreational purposes
C. If no paid sick leave were offered, fewer employees would take time off from work because of illness.
D. The benefit of companies' overall performance due to decreased absenteeism would benefit employees as well as shareholders.
E. The Reduction of paid sick leaves would affect all employees equally.

Thanks in advance!

Arpitkumar · Answer

Question doesn't talk about "benefits" per se , it only talks about paid leaves.
Now , it could be treated as a benefit - it could not be - who knows hence this ambiguity throws option A out.

mallya12 · Answer

Companies should eliminate paid sick Leaves for employees. This strategy would provide a disincentive for employees to take time off from work because of Illness. The resulting decrease in absenteeism would have a positive impact on companies' overall performances.

Which of the following is an assumption needed by the argument above?

A. Employees will stay at their companies regardless of change to their benefits.
B. Employees use sick days for vacation and other recreational purposes
C. If no paid sick leave were offered, fewer employees would take time off from work because of illness.
D. The benefit of companies' overall performance due to decreased absenteeism would benefit employees as well as shareholders.
E. The Reduction of paid sick leaves would affect all employees equally.

Between A and C.

If i negate A, i.e employees will not stay at their companies regardless of changes to their benifits, isn't it breaking the conclusion? 
 
And C is already mentioned in the argument.

Please explain.

Pankaj1Agarwal · Answer

Bunuel   MartyTargetTestPrep   daagh   sayantanc2k

A very hard one, OA as mentioned is C, but i am more inclined towards A.
Your guidance needed

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

The truth is that (A) is debatably correct.

In any well-written official question, the incorrect answers clearly have the wrong effect. For instance, an incorrect answer to an Assumption question may actually weaken the argument or may support the wrong conclusion.

Choice (A), on the other hand, does not clearly have the wrong effect. If we assume that losing employees would be detrimental to the performance of a company, which assumption is not exactly a huge leap, then (A) does state an assumption necessary for going from the evidence presented to the conclusion that changing the policy will have a positive effect on company performance.

On the other hand, the conclusion is specifically about the effects of the "resulting decrease in absenteeism," while (A) is about effects of losing employees. So, perhaps one could make the case that (A) is not necessary for arriving at a conclusion about the effects of a decrease in absenteeism.

Regarding (C), (C) does seem to apply directly to the conclusion. However, because of the way in which the argument is written, it's not clear whether "the resulting decrease in absenteeism" is basically a premise, or the conclusion is that a decrease in absenteeism will result.

So, (C) is not 100 percent clearly correct either.

The upshot of all of the above is that this question is not particularly well written, and, as a result, there is no great way to eliminate choice (A) or make a flawless case for choosing choice (C).

I think one could get this question "correct," if there is such a thing in this case, by figuring out that the conclusion is really supposed to be that absenteeism will decrease and that, therefore, (C) is a cute answer that states an assumption necessary for arriving at that conclusion. However, really, this question is rather flawed and has two potentially correct answer, and therefore, what you would have to do in order to arrive at the OA is not really representative of what you need learn to do in order correctly answer GMAT Critical Reasoning questions.

bhumi809 · Answer

why C, here c is more look like a conclusion

Companies should eliminate paid sick days for employees. This strategy

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GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

Companies should eliminate paid sick days for employees. This strategy

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