Corporate businesses, like species, must adapt to survive. Businesses

Question

Corporate businesses, like species, must adapt to survive. Businesses that are no longer efficient will become extinct. But sometimes a business cannot adapt without changing its core corporate philosophy. Hence, sometimes a business can survive only by becoming a different corporation.

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

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

(A) No business can survive without changing its core corporate philosophy

(B) As a business becomes less efficient, it invariably surrenders its core corporate philosophy

(C) Different corporations have different core corporate philosophies

(D) If a business keeps its core corporate business intact, it will continue to exist

(E) A business cannot change its core corporate philosophy without becoming a different corporation

chetan2u · Answer

Let us break down the para.. 
Corporate businesses must adapt to survive. 
Businesses that are no longer efficient will become extinct. 
 INFERENCE from above two - Efficiency is surely a factor which businesses require to survive.

But sometimes a business cannot adapt without changing its core corporate philosophy.
 Hence, sometimes a business can survive  only  by becoming a different corporation.

The word ONLY is very useful in weakening, in strengthening and in assumption as we can see here.  
We are talking of requirement of changing core corporate philosophy to survive and all of a sudden, we conclude that businesses, at times, have to become a different corporation and that is the ONLY way out..
 But there is no connection between the conclusion, that too such extreme, and the rest of the para. 
Therefore, there has to be a connection between changing of core corporate philosophy and becoming a different corporation

(A) 
The para talks of some businesses. Thus too extreme to be an answer.

(B) 
Yes, efficiency is a factor to survive. But the para talks of NO longer efficient, whereas we shift to less efficient here. Moreover, if we consider this option to be true, does it bridge the gap between changing of core corporate philosophy and becoming a different corporation..NO

(C) 
A very tempting choice. It means ' If different corporations, then different core corporate philosophies', but we are looking for ' If different core corporate philosophies, then different corporations'.
Two different things.
 Even if you are tempted, wait till you see all choices. There might be something better.

(D) 
does it bridge the gap between changing of core corporate philosophy and becoming a different corporation..NO

(E) 
YES, this bridges the gap, gives us the required connection and justifies the use of ONLY.

Even if you were earlier tempted towards C, you should now be convinced on E as the answer, as E is a better choice.

E

prabsahi · Answer

Keywords: Only by

different corporate policy >> Different organization
 
Conclusion:

Hence, sometimes a business can survive  only by becoming a different corporation.

Contenders option C and E

(C) Different corporations have different core corporate philosophies

An assumption is unstated and must be true for the argument to be valid.

The stimulus reverses the the fact..Different corporate policy leads to different corporations.
Also if we apply negation test here ,it doesn't Negate the conclusion..

Different corporations DO NOT HAVE have different core corporate philosophies

(E) A business cannot change its core corporate philosophy without becoming a different corporation

Looks perfect ..Lets negate this

A business  can change  its core corporate philosophy without becoming a different corporation..

Clearly the conclusion falls.

Hence E:

Extra Thoughts:

x HAPPENS ONLY if Y happens : is the same as If Y happens then X happens:
We know contrapostive is always true.

So If Not X then Not Y will be true.

Here X= different corporate policy
 Y = different organizations.

Hope it helps!!

mykrasovski · Answer

I understand it is possible to utilize the Unless Equation and Conditional Reasoning (sufficient & necessary conditions), but somehow I fail to do it... the question is way too confusing. Is it really a 600-700 lvl question? Seems harder. Thank you!

anothermillenial · Answer

mykrasovski  I've diagrammed a quick version for this question in the  blue  section.

Notes   
(P) biz. adapt to survive
(AP) not efficient → extinct
(P) sometimes biz. can’t adapt w/o ∆ phil.
(C) sometimes biz. survive thru become diff. corp
 
I tried the conditional diagramming method as well (see following post for conditional diagramming recap!), but will confess that the  sometimes  is difficult to account for:
Premise: S (to survive) → A (must adapt)  Additional Premise: no efficiency → extinction 
Premise: A (business adapts) → ∆CP (∆ core philosophy )
Conclusion: S (business survives) → DC (become different corporation)

Analysis & Pre-Think    
The author of this statement clearly has a very Darwinian opinion about the life of corporate businesses. He predicts that those businesses that lack efficiency will become extinct. He then argues that  sometimes  a business must change its core philosophy to survive. With all these premises in mind, he then somehow manages to conclude that  sometimes  a business can survive ONLY IF it becomes a difference corporation…From a quick glance, there seems to be a gap between the survival of a business and its becoming a different corporation. He seems to assume that changing philosophy leads to becoming a different corporation?

From the two premises (since the additional premise is just fluffy filler that doesn’t matter to our conclusion), we have:
S → A → ∆CP

Author concludes this:
S → DC

Looks like our gap is trying to figure out how the author went from ∆CP → DC, which similar to our pre-think. So that's good. Let's see what we get in the choices. 
 
Which one of the following is an assumption required by the argument?

(A)  No business can survive  without changing its core corporate philosophy. 
 OK, this answer choice sounds tricky but simply means that: “A business cannot survive without changing its philosophy.” Well, that’s just wrong. Nowhere in the premises does the author say “No business can survive” without changing its core philosophy. In fact, the author only says this is only “sometimes” true in his conclusion.

In diagram format, we would write: S → ∆CP. From this standpoint, it looks like it’s just the premise restated, which would be wrong anyway. I’d say though a bigger elimination point would be that the stimulus says “sometimes” and our answer choice says “no business  ”. Far too extreme!

(B) As a business  becomes less efficient , it  invariably surrenders  its core corporate philosophy. 
Wow, this is a bit far fetched. It mentions a business’s efficiency….which is not relevant to our conclusion about becoming a different corporation.

(C)  Different corporations  have  different core corporate  philosophies. 
Whether different corporations have different philosophies doesn’t matter to us. We care about the change in philosophy for the sake of survival. Not sure why the above posts have (C) as a contender but even if this is negated ("Different corporations DO NOT have different core corporate philosophies."), this fact does not impact the conclusion about a business's survival and becoming a different corporation.

(D) If a business  keeps its core corporate business intact , it will continue to exist. 
Not relevant. The author discusses changing philosophies, not about keeping business intact for purpose of existence.

(E) A business cannot change its core corporate philosophy  without becoming a different corporation . 
This is our gap from our pre-thinking moment!

As a conditional diagram, we would write: ∆CP → DC. And if we fill it in below, we get some fun stuff. From the two premises (since the additional premise is just fluffy filler that doesn’t matter to our conclusion), we have: 
S → A → ∆CP

Author concludes this:
S → ? ? ? → DC

Author assumes, as (E) says:
∆CP → DC

Conclusion becomes:
S → A → ∆CP → DC     √

anothermillenial · Answer

Conditional Diagramming with “No” + “Without”

I hate conditional diagramming and “no” and “without” are confusing all on their own already. What’s even more aggravating is that sometimes they even appear together! I did a quick recap of the two below. Hope it helps!

I’d Be Happier “Without” Diagramming…!

Ex: Without food, your baby will not stop crying.

“Without” — “unless”, “except”, and “until” also follow this rule — introduces a necessary condition and requires negating the remaining condition. Let’s walk through the example with the two-step process:

1. “Food” becomes the necessary condition.
2. Negate “will not stop crying”, which becomes the sufficient condition.

After all that crazy work, we get: SC (stop crying) → F (food). This means: if your baby has stopped crying, it is guaranteed that the baby has been given food. And that makes sense here.

“No” Diagrams for Me!

Ex. No bird can survive in water.

“No” generally introduces a necessary condition. It may be easier to think of the example as: A bird cannot survive in water. The proper diagram would be: B → ~W or W → ~B. (This is often mistakenly diagrammed as: ~B (~ bird) → W (survive in water). Why is this wrong? Let’s think through this: if the thing is not a bird, can we guarantee it will survive in water? No! What if the thing is a cheetah? Or a snake? Or a human?)

“Without” “No” Diagramming (*cue* "Nice For What"...the remix version)

Ex. No bird can survive in water….unless it is a caged bird in a submarine.

What happens when we combine “without” and “no” in a statement? I cry. But let’s try combining what we know from above. What does this actually mean? Where do we start? It’s okay; I also love to panic.

Let’s reword the “no” part into: A bird cannot survive in water. So that takes us to what we diagrammed above: B → ~W.

What do we do with the “without”? Hm, so we know it’s the necessary condition, so that tell us:

? → S (caged bird in a submarine)

We know we have to negate the remaining condition….but it’s like two statements? If we think of that “No bird can survive in water…” as one whole statement (kind of like putting parentheses around it), we can write it as ~BW (bird cannot survive in water). Since we’re dealing with a “without” statement, we need to do some negation work.

After so much working, we finally get:

BW → S

If we check this meaning, the diagram says: If the bird can survive in water, then it is guaranteed to be in a submarine! Bingo!

Let’s reword the “no” part into: A bird cannot survive in water. So that takes us to what we diagrammed above: B → ~W. What do we do with the “without”? Hm, so we know it’s the necessary condition, so that tell us: ? → S (caged bird in a submarine) We know we have to negate the remaining condition….but it’s like two statements? If we think of that “No bird can survive in water…” as one whole statement (kind of like putting parentheses around it), we can write it as ~BW (bird cannot survive in water). Since we’re dealing with a “without” statement, we need to do some negation work. After so much working, we finally get: BW → S If we check this meaning, the diagram says: If the bird can survive in water, then it is guaranteed to be in a submarine! Bingo!

VerbalBot · Answer

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Corporate businesses, like species, must adapt to survive. Businesses

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