Many of Vebrol Corporation's department heads Will retire this year.

Question

Which of the following provides the most logical completion of the argument?

Many of Vebrol Corporation's department heads Will retire this year. The number of employees with the qualifications Vebrol Will require for promotion to department head is equal to only half the expected vacancies. Vebrol is not going to hire department heads from outside the company, have current department heads take over more than one department, or reduce the number of its departments. So some departments Will be without department heads next year, since Vebrol Will not__________________________

(A) promote more than one employee from any department to serve as heads of departments

(B) promote any current department heads to higher-level managerial positions

(C) have any managers who are currently senior to department heads serve as department heads

(D) reduce the responsibilities of each department

(E) reduce the average number of employees per department

ID: 500411

03864

GGMU · Accepted Answer

Many of Vebrol Corporation's department heads Will retire this year. The number of employees with the qualifications Vebrol Will require for promotion to department head is equal to only half the expected vacancies. Vebrol is not going to hire department heads from outside the company, have current department heads take over more than one department, or reduce the number of its departments. So some departments Will be without department heads next year, since Vebrol Will not__________________________

Premise 1: Many of Vebrol Corporation's department heads Will retire this year.
Premise 2: The number of employees with the qualifications Vebrol Will require for promotion to department head is equal to only half the expected vacancies. 
 Conclusion: Some departments Will be without department heads next year 
 Strengthener1: Vebrol is not going to hire department heads from outside the company
Strengthener2: will not have current department heads take over more than one department, or reduce the number of its departments 
 Strengthener3: This we are required to figure out from the options. 
 
A) promote more than one employee from any department to serve as heads of departments  They don't have enough qualified people to handle the job. 
B) promote any current department heads to higher-level managerial positions  out of scope 
C) have any managers Who are currently senior to department heads serve as department heads  Sounds good as no super senior mgmt personel would be asked to manage the deptt 
D) reduce the responsibilities of each department  still doesn't ans why some dept would be without dept heads next year 
E) reduce the average number of employees per department  still doesn't ans why some dept would be without dept heads next year

VeritasPrepBrian · Answer

Good question - and I'd say that this sentence from the stimulus is what renders (A) useless (like nightblade mentioned, it doesn't tell us anything new):

The number of employees with the qualifications Vebrol Will require for promotion to department head is equal to only half the expected vacancies.

We already know that the company cannot promote enough employees to fill the vacancies. All that (A) does is divide that already-insufficient number of eligible promotions into different departments. But whether we can promote 1 person or 20 people from Accounting and 1 person or 50 people from Engineering doesn't matter because that sentence above already tells us that the total number of people who could be promoted to fill the open roles is insufficient. So (A) doesn't matter.

One other note on this question that's pretty cool - I love this one as an example of misdirection. Everyone studying for the GMAT is doing so because they want to grow in their roles and climb to higher levels of the corporate ladder. So what does the right answer involve? The possibility of people being  demoted  to lower levels...because of course our minds are primed to not think of that immediately. That sentence I mentioned above, though, explicitly states that promotions aren't sufficient, and we're also told that hiring from outside the company isn't an option. So the only other way to fill that level is through demotions...it's just not where our minds will naturally go, and that's a device the GMAT can use to make questions harder - the right answer is something you'd never think to predict.

Kurtosis · Answer

Many department heads are retiring this year.
Eligible candidates for department heads = 50% of vacancies.
Department heads can't handle multiple departments and candidates are not hired from outside the company.
Conclusion: Few departments will not have department heads.

We have to find an answer choice that supports the conclusion.

A) promote more than one employee from any department to serve as heads of departments - Incorrect. Even if the company promoted more than one employee the number of eligible candidates is only half the number of vacancies.

B) promote any current department heads to higher-level managerial positions - Incorrect. No effect on the conclusion.

C) have any managers Who are currently senior to department heads serve as department heads - Correct. Supports the conclusion by providing one more condition.

D) reduce the responsibilities of each department - Incorrect. Out of scope. We do not have any stated relationship between responsibilities of a department and department head.

E) reduce the average number of employees per department - Incorrect. Even if there were few employees in the department the department can be without a department head.

Answer: C

arvind910619 · Answer

Imo C
If the managers who are senior to department heads will not be asked to remain department head then there will be more vacancy for department heads , hence this is what C is saying .

articuno · Answer

A: Even if Vebrol promoted employees, there would still be some depts without leaders. Eliminate

B: Similar to A. This would exacerbate the problem. Eliminate

C: Hold

D: Irrelevant. The argument is not about the responsibility of departments. The argument is about headcount and vacancies.

E: This is already happening. If the company were to avoid reducing headcount, then this answer choice provides the opposite of what we're trying to achieve.

Let's look at C. It reminds me of "have current dept heads take over..."

nitesh50 · Answer

HI

Can someone please explain why option A cant be the answer to this question.
If from every department more than 1 employee serve as heads of departments(1 employee= many heads), then isn't this a valid option?
If the company did this action, then there will be no vacancies.

VeritasKarishma 
 VeritasPrepBrian 
 chetan2u 
 MartyTargetTestPrep 
 nightblade354 
 Gladiator59

Regards
Nitesh

nightblade354 · Answer

nitesh50 ,

(A) is not our answer because it doesn't tell us anything. We are only told that there are employees who can be promoted. What if they are all from the same department because they all have MBAs from Harvard and are great at their jobs? Just because more than one is promoted does not help our conclusion because it doesn't grow/shrink our pool of candidates. I believe you made the assumption that if the VP is promoted, his AVP can't be promoted to that same level; or maybe you didn't account for the fact that a department can have more than one VP. Either way, do not make assumptions! Use what the author gave you to use. (C) perfectly explains that the pool will not increase, and thus strengthens our conclusion that some departments will go without leaders.

nitesh50 · Answer

Hi  nightblade354

that if the VP is promoted, his AVP can't be promoted to that same level; or maybe you didn't account for the fact that a department can have more than one VP. Either way, do not make assumptions! Use what the author gave you to use. (C) perfectly explains that the pool will not increase, and thus strengthens our conclusion that some departments will go without leaders.

I dont understand the initial you have mentioned. Can you please define them. VP AVP.
Sorry for the inconvenience

Regards

nightblade354 · Answer

nitesh50 ,

VP = Vice President and AVP = Associate Vice President; one is higher than the other. My point was that maybe you assumed that two cannot be promoted if one is below the other in position during the promotional period.

nitesh50 · Answer

Hi  nightblade354

I do understand your point.
But IMO i am not making any assumptions.
Statment is Company will not promote more than one employee to be HEADS OF DEPARTMENT.

Let us say that the company does this. If this is a valid strengthner, then Department heads will not have vacancies.

If company promotes employees from one department to be HEADS OF OTHER DEPARTMENT, then in this case there may be no vacancies.

Am I clear in conveying my doubt?

Regards

nightblade354 · Answer

nitesh50 ,

Many of Vebrol Corporation's department heads Will retire this year. 
 The number of employees with the qualifications Vebrol Will require for promotion to department head is equal to only half the expected vacancies. 
  Vebrol is not going to hire department heads from outside the company, have current department heads take over more than one department, or reduce the number of its departments.  
So some departments Will be without department heads next year, since Vebrol Will not__________________________

We cannot say that the first part in blue is incorrect; and we cannot ignore this statement. We are given a finite set of circumstances, and that leads us to our conclusion. We are told that if there are 10 openings, only 5 people are qualified. There are other conclusions that can fill the gap, but (C) is where they went. When you pair (A) with the part in blue, I hope you see that (A) doesn't matter and is completely useless.

gmatman1031 · Answer

Very similar question: https://gmatclub.com/forum/a-large-numb ... 35910.html

AkhilAggarwal · Answer

Hi  GMATNinja   GMATNinja Two  VeritasKarishma   Veritas   egmat   ManhattanPrep   Other  experts

Is below line of reasoning correct?

In option A,it is possible that a single person is given the responsibility of more than 1 dept. ,in this way all vacancies can be filled.
For example there are 100 vacancies,and eligible employees are only 50.I can distribute 2 departments each to 50 employees.Thus,all 100 vacancies will be filled.

KarishmaB · Answer

Not quite.

The argument gives us points why some vacancies will not be filled:

- The number of employees with the qualifications Vebrol will require for promotion to department head is equal to only half the expected vacancies. 
- Vebrol is not going to hire department heads from outside the company, 
- will not have current department heads take over more than one department, 
- will not reduce the number of its departments.

These are the ways in which Vebrol could have filled up the dept heads positions but it will not.

Question stem: So some departments will be without department heads next year, since Vebrol will not_______
 
So we are looking for another point that covers a possible solution in which the vacancies can be filled up. We need what else will Vebrol not do which will lead to some depts being without heads.

A) promote more than one employee from any department to serve as heads of departments
 
This tells us that more than 1 employee will not be picked from a department. It doesn't add much to the argument. The argument already tells us that number of eligible employees is half of the required number. 
So if heads of 10 depts are retiring, we have only 5 eligible employees. Which depts these employees belong to and whether they belong to same or all different depts is irrelevant. Option (A) tells us that from each dept at most 1 employee will be promoted to dept head. It doesn't give us another reason why some dept head vacancies will not be filled.

C) have any managers Who are currently senior to department heads serve as department heads 
 
Correct. This tells us that Vebrol will not demote some of its seniors to dept head position so that's another way in which it could have filled in the dept head positions but will not.

krndatta · Answer

KarishmaB  Ma'am,

Just to rephrase what you stated for option A. We know that the number of employees with qualifications for dept. heads is half of the required vacancies. Even if they promote at most a single person from the department, then too there would be some departments without department heads. So option A does not impact our argument in anyway.

KarishmaB · Answer

Yes, say there will be 100 vacancies. There are only 50 employees who can be promoted to dept heads. Whether these 50 employees come from the same dept or diff depts, whether each dept sends one employee only or multiple employees to become dept heads, doesn't matter. At the end of the day, there are no more than total 50 employees who can be promoted to dept heads.

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Many of Vebrol Corporation's department heads Will retire this year.

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