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07 Aug 2026, 12:45
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Consultant: Cross-functional project teams, those whose members are drawn from multiple departments, are consistently more innovative than teams whose members all work in a single department. Members of a cross-functional team gain firsthand experience using a broad range of mental models and problem-solving heuristics from outside their own department, while being afforded frequent opportunities to observe—and be observed by—colleagues with substantial expertise using those cognitive tools. It is these relationships, along with the breadth of exposure to the tools themselves, that equips the members of cross-functional teams to innovate more widely.
Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the consultant’s argument?
A. Companies that regularly use cross-functional teams for product development report higher rates of interdepartmental communication, on average, than similarly structured companies that do not.
B. Firms in industries characterized by rapid, frequently disruptive technological change are more likely to use cross-functional teams than are firms in industries that have evolved more gradually over time.
C. On metrics that gauge innovation, teams drawn from multiple departments generally do not outperform single-department teams with a comparable breadth of combined educational and work experience.
D. Teams drawn from a single department that are given regular briefings on problem-solving models and heuristics used in the employer’s other departments are no more innovative on average than teams from a single department that receive no such briefings.
E. Teams made up of members who have previously worked in more than one of the employer’s departments are significantly more innovative than teams whose members have only worked in one such department.
Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the consultant’s argument?
A. Companies that regularly use cross-functional teams for product development report higher rates of interdepartmental communication, on average, than similarly structured companies that do not.
B. Firms in industries characterized by rapid, frequently disruptive technological change are more likely to use cross-functional teams than are firms in industries that have evolved more gradually over time.
C. On metrics that gauge innovation, teams drawn from multiple departments generally do not outperform single-department teams with a comparable breadth of combined educational and work experience.
D. Teams drawn from a single department that are given regular briefings on problem-solving models and heuristics used in the employer’s other departments are no more innovative on average than teams from a single department that receive no such briefings.
E. Teams made up of members who have previously worked in more than one of the employer’s departments are significantly more innovative than teams whose members have only worked in one such department.
07 Aug 2026, 12:45
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Official Solution:
Consultant: Cross-functional project teams, those whose members are drawn from multiple departments, are consistently more innovative than teams whose members all work in a single department. Members of a cross-functional team gain firsthand experience using a broad range of mental models and problem-solving heuristics from outside their own department, while being afforded frequent opportunities to observe—and be observed by—colleagues with substantial expertise using those cognitive tools. It is these relationships, along with the breadth of exposure to the tools themselves, that equips the members of cross-functional teams to innovate more widely.
Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the consultant’s argument?
A. Companies that regularly use cross-functional teams for product development report higher rates of interdepartmental communication, on average, than similarly structured companies that do not.
B. Firms in industries characterized by rapid, frequently disruptive technological change are more likely to use cross-functional teams than are firms in industries that have evolved more gradually over time.
C. On metrics that gauge innovation, teams drawn from multiple departments generally do not outperform single-department teams with a comparable breadth of combined educational and work experience.
D. Teams drawn from a single department that are given regular briefings on problem-solving models and heuristics used in the employer’s other departments are no more innovative on average than teams from a single department that receive no such briefings.
E. Teams made up of members who have previously worked in more than one of the employer’s departments are significantly more innovative than teams whose members have only worked in one such department.
The consultant opens with an interesting fact: cross-functional teams (teams with members from more than one of their employer’s departments) are consistently more innovative than teams that are not cross-functional (with members all from one department). The consultant asserts that there are two causes that combine to produce the extra innovativeness of cross-functional teams: /i/ the hands-on work that team members do with the mental models and problem-solving heuristics from departments other than their own, and /ii/ the working relationships that develop between team members who are expert users of various models/heuristics and those who are just becoming acquainted with those tools.
If a phenomenon has two joint causes—which must act together to produce the result under discussion—then the phenomenon should obtain when both of those causes are in effect, but should not obtain if only one of the two causes is in effect.
We know from the passage that the stated effect (a boost to the innovative powers of employees who work on cross-functional teams) DOES accrue to team members who experience both /i/ and /ii/ above. It remains to show that /i/ and /ii/ are genuinely joint causes—i.e., that the team members don't just reap their extra innovative acumen from one or the other—so the correct answer should assert that extra innovativeness does NOT accrue to employees for whom only one of /i/ and /ii/ is true.
It's impossible for /ii/ but not /i/ to be true (the employees can't build working relationships around diverse cognitive tools if they aren't exposed to those tools in the first place!), so in effect we have a 'formula' for the correct answer: It should show that the stated effect does NOT obtain if ONLY /i/ is true, i.e., that employees who are exposed to a variety of models/heuristics WITHOUT the added benefit of working relationships with experienced/expert teammates DO NOT become more innovative on average.
The choice that fits this formula is (D). In the briefings described in (D), team members get the exposure to various models and heuristics WITHOUT collaborating closely with colleagues who have expertise with those tools. That these employees do not, in fact, become any more innovative as a result of that exposure alone greatly strengthens the consultant's conclusion that the innovation boost is a joint effect.
INCORRECT ANSWERS:
(A) This answer choice does not discuss differential levels of innovation, so it is irrelevant. (Moreover, the phenomenon that the consultant seeks to explain is observed at the level of teams; this choice, on the other hand, mentions a phenomenon that’s observed at the whole-company level.)
(B) This answer choice contains nothing related to individual innovativeness or its proposed catalysts, so it is irrelevant.
(C) states that if we control for the aggregate breadth of experience held by the team members collectively, then cross-functionality actually has no effect on innovativeness. If this is the case then the actual cause of increased innovativeness greater aggregate breadth of work experience across the team as a whole—NOT cross-functionality, which is merely a confounding variable—and so consultant's argument is proved wrong.
(E) The situation described here—in which individual team members have histories with multiple departments at their company—is something altogether different from the phenomenon of cross-functional teams that the consultant names as the cause of extra innovative power, so this choice cannot speak to the consultant’s hypothesis. (This situation is not a proxy for cross-functionality as defined by the consultant. It’s entirely possible for the latter type of team mentioned here—comprising employees who have each worked only in a single department—to span more departments overall than the former type of team.)
Answer: D
Consultant: Cross-functional project teams, those whose members are drawn from multiple departments, are consistently more innovative than teams whose members all work in a single department. Members of a cross-functional team gain firsthand experience using a broad range of mental models and problem-solving heuristics from outside their own department, while being afforded frequent opportunities to observe—and be observed by—colleagues with substantial expertise using those cognitive tools. It is these relationships, along with the breadth of exposure to the tools themselves, that equips the members of cross-functional teams to innovate more widely.
Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the consultant’s argument?
A. Companies that regularly use cross-functional teams for product development report higher rates of interdepartmental communication, on average, than similarly structured companies that do not.
B. Firms in industries characterized by rapid, frequently disruptive technological change are more likely to use cross-functional teams than are firms in industries that have evolved more gradually over time.
C. On metrics that gauge innovation, teams drawn from multiple departments generally do not outperform single-department teams with a comparable breadth of combined educational and work experience.
D. Teams drawn from a single department that are given regular briefings on problem-solving models and heuristics used in the employer’s other departments are no more innovative on average than teams from a single department that receive no such briefings.
E. Teams made up of members who have previously worked in more than one of the employer’s departments are significantly more innovative than teams whose members have only worked in one such department.
The consultant opens with an interesting fact: cross-functional teams (teams with members from more than one of their employer’s departments) are consistently more innovative than teams that are not cross-functional (with members all from one department). The consultant asserts that there are two causes that combine to produce the extra innovativeness of cross-functional teams: /i/ the hands-on work that team members do with the mental models and problem-solving heuristics from departments other than their own, and /ii/ the working relationships that develop between team members who are expert users of various models/heuristics and those who are just becoming acquainted with those tools.
If a phenomenon has two joint causes—which must act together to produce the result under discussion—then the phenomenon should obtain when both of those causes are in effect, but should not obtain if only one of the two causes is in effect.
We know from the passage that the stated effect (a boost to the innovative powers of employees who work on cross-functional teams) DOES accrue to team members who experience both /i/ and /ii/ above. It remains to show that /i/ and /ii/ are genuinely joint causes—i.e., that the team members don't just reap their extra innovative acumen from one or the other—so the correct answer should assert that extra innovativeness does NOT accrue to employees for whom only one of /i/ and /ii/ is true.
It's impossible for /ii/ but not /i/ to be true (the employees can't build working relationships around diverse cognitive tools if they aren't exposed to those tools in the first place!), so in effect we have a 'formula' for the correct answer: It should show that the stated effect does NOT obtain if ONLY /i/ is true, i.e., that employees who are exposed to a variety of models/heuristics WITHOUT the added benefit of working relationships with experienced/expert teammates DO NOT become more innovative on average.
The choice that fits this formula is (D). In the briefings described in (D), team members get the exposure to various models and heuristics WITHOUT collaborating closely with colleagues who have expertise with those tools. That these employees do not, in fact, become any more innovative as a result of that exposure alone greatly strengthens the consultant's conclusion that the innovation boost is a joint effect.
INCORRECT ANSWERS:
(A) This answer choice does not discuss differential levels of innovation, so it is irrelevant. (Moreover, the phenomenon that the consultant seeks to explain is observed at the level of teams; this choice, on the other hand, mentions a phenomenon that’s observed at the whole-company level.)
(B) This answer choice contains nothing related to individual innovativeness or its proposed catalysts, so it is irrelevant.
(C) states that if we control for the aggregate breadth of experience held by the team members collectively, then cross-functionality actually has no effect on innovativeness. If this is the case then the actual cause of increased innovativeness greater aggregate breadth of work experience across the team as a whole—NOT cross-functionality, which is merely a confounding variable—and so consultant's argument is proved wrong.
(E) The situation described here—in which individual team members have histories with multiple departments at their company—is something altogether different from the phenomenon of cross-functional teams that the consultant names as the cause of extra innovative power, so this choice cannot speak to the consultant’s hypothesis. (This situation is not a proxy for cross-functionality as defined by the consultant. It’s entirely possible for the latter type of team mentioned here—comprising employees who have each worked only in a single department—to span more departments overall than the former type of team.)
Answer: D
