According to a recent study, employees who bring their own lunches to

Question

According to a recent study, employees who bring their own lunches to work take fewer sick days and and are, on average, more productive per hour spent at work than those who eat at the workplace cafeteria. In order to minimize the number of sick days taken by its staff, Boltech Industries plans to eliminate its cafeteria.

Which of the following, if true, provides the most reason to believe that Boltech Industries' strategy will not accomplish its objective?

A. Boltech's cafeteria is known for serving a diverse array of healthy lunch options. 
B. Because of Boltech's location, employees who choose to visit a nearby restaurant for lunch will seldom be able to return within an hour. 
C. Employees have expressed concern about the cost of dining at nearby restaurants compared with the affordability of the Boltech cafeteria. 
D. Employees who bring their lunch from home tend to lead generally healthier lifestyles than do employees who purchase lunch. 
E. Many Boltech employees chose to work for the company in large part because of its generous benefits, such as an on-site cafeteria and fitness center.

nightblade354 · Accepted Answer

Hi  kannu44 ,

Let's analyze the argument:

According to a recent study, employees who bring their own lunches to work take fewer sick days and and are, on average, more productive per hour spent at work than those who eat at the workplace cafeteria.  In order to minimize the number of sick days taken by its staff, Boltech Industries plans to eliminate its cafeteria.
  -- This portion in blue is the conclusion of the argument. We need to find a flaw in it the reasoning.

Which of the following, if true, provides the most reason to believe that Boltech Industries' strategy will not accomplish its objective?

A. Boltech's cafeteria is known for serving a diverse array of healthy lunch options. --  We cannot assume this would lead to poorer health, if eliminated.
 What if all the employees went out to eat? This would then have no effect on the employee's health. 
B. Because of Boltech's location, employees who choose to visit a nearby restaurant for lunch will seldom be able to return within an hour. --  This talks about the premise (productivity), but not about health. A very close contender that I had as a runner-up.  
C. Employees have expressed concern about the cost of dining at nearby restaurants compared with the affordability of the Boltech cafeteria. --  Cost does not affect health of the employees (no restaurant health effects were given).  
D. Employees who bring their lunch from home tend to lead generally healthier lifestyles than do employees who purchase lunch.  -- Correlation between lunch and health! This says that people who bring lunch lead healthier lives, hence are less sick. It has nothing to do with them physically bringing lunch, but their healthy lifestyle choices! If the company forces everyone to bring lunch, it won't change those who make healthier choices (work out) and those who doesn't. 
E. Many Boltech employees chose to work for the company in large part because of its generous benefits, such as an on-site cafeteria and fitness center. --  This has nothing to do with health. It only shows why people work there, which is out of scope.

Does this help? If not, I can take a different approach!

aragonn · Answer

argument : bringing lunch means fewer sick leaves and more productive.

anything that weaken it can be the answer.

prethinking :
if we define cases where even after bringin lunch people are taking high sick leaves.

POE:
A. Boltech's cafeteria is known for serving a diverse array of healthy lunch options. --- if so then they don't have to take the decision to close it down.
B. Because of Boltech's location, employees who choose to visit a nearby restaurant for lunch will seldom be able to return within an hour.--- not making any affect.
C. Employees have expressed concern about the cost of dining at nearby restaurants compared with the affordability of the Boltech cafeteria. --- cost is out of scope.
D. Employees who bring their lunch from home tend to lead generally healthier lifestyles than do employees who purchase lunch. --- alternative cause of "bringing lunch". well in that case it is a typical causal relation problem. --- correct. 
E. Many Boltech employees chose to work for the company in large part because of its generous benefits, such as an on-site cafeteria and fitness center. --- out of scope.

kannu44 · Answer

I didn't understand the reasoning here for the OA. can any expert help with that.
Thanks for your time.

Prashant10692 · Answer

Conclusion is in order to min. the no. of sick days - cafeteria eliminated.
What if the people who bring lunch falls less sick because of some other reason i.e some good habits, gym etc in that case the validity of argument would be weaken. 
Hence D.

ccooley · Answer

Here's something that shows up in a lot of GMAT CR weaken problems: the 'reason why' argument. (See this for more detail: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... l-you-why/) In this argument, the author is implicitly assuming that bringing your own lunch causes you to be healthier and more productive. How do we know that the author is assuming that? Well, he has some data that says that people who bring their own lunch are healthier and more productive. He proposes eliminating the cafeteria. The only reason for him to make that proposal, would be if he thought that eliminating the cafeteria, forcing people to bring their own lunch, would cause people to be healthier and more productive. So we've got this assumption that something happened for a particular reason. When you see that kind of assumption in a Weaken problem, ask yourself whether there could be another, better reason that could explain why that thing happened. For instance, another, better explanation here is that having a healthier lifestyle in general causes you to be healthier and more productive. D is correct because it suggests that that reason is the right one.

aragonn · Answer

premise: bring their own lunches means less sick days , more productive per hour spent at work than those who eat at the workplace cafeteria.
objective: minimize the number of sick days taken.

What to do? : Find reason that cafeteria should not be closed.
pre-thinking: alternate cause for explaining this.

A. Boltech's cafeteria is known for serving a diverse array of healthy lunch options. --- it is still not explaining sick leaves. 
B. Because of Boltech's location, employees who choose to visit a nearby restaurant for lunch will seldom be able to return within an hour. --- time is not a point of discussion here. 
C. Employees have expressed concern about the cost of dining at nearby restaurants compared with the affordability of the Boltech cafeteria. --- price is agin not a concern .
D. Employees who bring their lunch from home tend to lead generally healthier lifestyles than do employees who purchase lunch. ---- this one is talking about health. cause of healthier lifestyles. on the line of thinking.
E. Many Boltech employees chose to work for the company in large part because of its generous benefits, such as an on-site cafeteria and fitness center. ---- out of scope

Bunuel · Answer

VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:

The strategy outlined in this Weaken problem makes a classic error of correlation vs. causation, assuming that "bringing lunch to work" is a cause of "takes fewer sick days." In actuality, it could be that bringing lunch is an effect of a totally different cause, as choice D correctly points out. With choice D, the cause of both "brings lunch to work" and "takes fewer sick days" is that generally-healthier people do both - they bring their lunch to work and they take fewer sick days. Forcing someone else - someone less healthy - to bring his or her lunch wouldn't change the other unhealthy habits that lead to extra sick days, so the plan would not work.

While choice A seems like it should weaken the plan (taking away the healthy options at the cafeteria), keep in mind that we already have the evidence that those who bring their lunch take fewer sick days than those who eat at the cafeteria, so those healthy cafeteria options have already been called into question as a driver of fewer sick days.

Choice B could very well be correct if the goal were to minimize "time away from one's desk" or something similar, but the goal is specifically called out as "fewer sick days." Being away for a longer period for lunch may well be a problem worth considering, but in the context of this particular goal it is irrelevant.

Choice C is similar: it shows a reason why the plan might not be a great plan overall (it could hurt employee morale) but the goal is specifically drawn at "fewer sick days" so that morale is irrelevant to the specific aims in the problem. For similar reasons, choice E is also incorrect - while morale may be hurt and people might feel misled (or future recruitment efforts may fall short), the only objective specifically addressed in the problem is "reduce the number of sick days" so choice E is not relevant.

smruthilokesh · Answer

A. Boltech's cafeteria is known for serving a diverse array of healthy lunch options.
 - Misleading answer. Maybe the food is served at odd times and that might spoil health. This option is still dependant on food being the reason.

B. Because of Boltech's location, employees who choose to visit a nearby restaurant for lunch will seldom be able to return within an hour.
 - Here time is not a constraint. The stimulus mentions that the productivity is low and there are more sick days but it doesn't specify anything about the delay in hours.

C. Employees have expressed concern about the cost of dining at nearby restaurants compared with the affordability of the Boltech cafeteria.
 - Again, cost is not a constraint specified by the stimulus. If you consider this as the right answer then you are inevitably making assumptions.

D. Employees who bring their lunch from home tend to lead generally healthier lifestyles than do employees who purchase lunch.
 - This gives us an alternative reason why the employees who bring lunch from home are healthy. Whenever you see such an option, that option is usually right.
In other words, the stimulus says A causes B. Whereas, this option suggests that C causes B. This definitely weakens the conclusion.

E. Many Boltech employees chose to work for the company in large part because of its generous benefits, such as an on-site cafeteria and fitness center.
 - Again working in a company or leaving the company is not a matter of concern here. Try to be very objective in your approach.

VerbalBot · Answer

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