Some X-Ray Machines at Cleveland clinic require certain upgrades. Howe

Question

Some X-Ray Machines at Cleveland clinic require certain upgrades. However, the work of upgrading the 20 X-Ray Machines is difficult and mentally taxing. Physicians require X ray reports during the day, making it difficult for the X-Ray Machine technician to set aside time for upgrading each of the X-Ray Machines. Therefore, the most efficient time to upgrade the X-Ray Machines is between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. when the X-Ray Machines
would be free.

Which of the following, if true, argues most strongly against the view that upgrades could be done more efficiently by scheduling them at night ?

A. X-Ray Machine technicians are generally paid the same when they work during the night than when they work during the day
B. Energy costs in hospitals are greatly lower at night than they are during the day.
C. More blackouts occur between midnight and eight o'clock in the morning than at any other time.
D. Mental alertness is lower in the late night than during the day, especially in people not accustomed to working at night.
E. Over the course of a year, hospital's X-Ray Machines will require periodical checks and upkeep

Despairnsad4lyfe · Accepted Answer

How to eliminate C? IMO it's a far better than option D because for that to work you need to assume that these workers aren't used to working at night, whereas in option C nothing needs to be assumed and it's quite obvious that without electricity or light it is impossible to fix a machine, especially at night.

Archit3110 · Answer

Premise 
the work of upgrading the 20 X-Ray Machines is difficult and  mentally taxing

option D is sufficient to go against the conclusion : Therefore, the most efficient time to upgrade the X-Ray Machines is between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. when the X-Ray Machines would be free.

Mental alertness is lower in the late night than during the day, especially in people not accustomed to working at night 
IMO D

anshsaurabh · Answer

Option D mentions the word 'ESPECIALLY'. It means mental alertness is generally lower in night for everyone, ESPECIALLY for people not accustomed to working at night.
Option C says MORE blackouts occur between MIDNIGHT and 8 a.m. It means blackouts occur in the daytime too. Also, it is nowhere mentioned that the upgrading requires electricity. We need to assume that upgrading requires electricity. Hence, It doesn't weaken the argument.

Fdambro294 · Answer

Pay and cost is not really relevant to “efficiency”

I believe the key to choosing D over C as the “best answer that most weakens” is, as someone mentioned above, recognizing the fact that there may be almost just as many blackouts during the day. What does “more” blackouts mean? Are there many blackouts during the day as well, and only several “more” blackouts at night?

Also, the other suspicious “clue” regarding answer C is the times chosen: 12 to 8. The answer conveniently leaves out the time period from 10 to 12, about which we know nothing about. We have to start thinking about things such as how long does it take to fix the machine and why can’t they just fix the machines during that 2 hour window when there isn’t more blackouts.

With respect to D, we are told that these technicians have a hard time during the day scheduling the repairs. If they are trying to schedule the repairs during the day, then common sense would say they must be around during the day. If they are around during the day trying to schedule repairs, it’s less of a logical leap to say they are working during these times.

In the end, since it’s not an official question, I guess there is no point torturing the answers to death. The newer 700+ questions in the O.G. seem to require a similar “common sense” approach in search of the “best answer”.

Although they are generally logically “tighter” than this question.....

Posted from my mobile device

Thekingmaker · Answer

Ka boom this one thing about understanding and going back to the passage and never too lose site of the passage , cut to the chase it's quite obvious that if we had it had to be plugged into the electricity however this thing isn't explicitily stated out in passage hence i eliminated C (may be these alien creatures use solar power batteries ) i nailed down D because it was stated the repairing is highly mental da/unting and if the level of concentration is pretty doen for the technicians the it's better to complete the work in the morning thus IMO D 
how to weed out other option it's easy people might just right out of context i just concentrated on the one' s that had the final2 dilemma the most common in any gmat questions

Andinds1991 · Answer

IMHO, there is no information linked to blackouts or electricity in the prompt, so logically we cannot link it ourselves and shouldn't as it is out of scope. Perhaps, there are other solutions to blackouts such as generators and therefore we shouldn't take them into account.

asad9242 · Answer

Some X-Ray Machines at Cleveland clinic require certain upgrades. However, the work of upgrading the 20 X-Ray Machines is difficult and mentally taxing. Physicians require X ray reports during the day, making it difficult for the X-Ray Machine technician to set aside time for upgrading each of the X-Ray Machines. Therefore, the most efficient time to upgrade the X-Ray Machines is between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. when the X-Ray Machines
would be free.

Which of the following, if true, argues most strongly against the view that upgrades could be done more efficiently by scheduling them at night ?

A. X-Ray Machine technicians are generally paid the same when they work during the night than when they work during the day
Not important how they get paid.

B. Energy costs in hospitals are greatly lower at night than they are during the day.
Does not matter.

C. More blackouts occur between midnight and eight o'clock in the morning than at any other time.
Machines would already be off when this things is under maintenance so blackouts do not matter.

D. Mental alertness is lower in the late night than during the day, especially in people not accustomed to working at night.
Statement mentioned it a difficult and mentally taxing task so mental alertness is required. so, thats true.

E. Over the course of a year, hospital's X-Ray Machines will require periodical checks and upkeep
No need

agrasan · Answer

Hi experts  KarishmaB   MartyMurray   DmitryFarber

C. More blackouts occur between midnight and eight o'clock in the morning than at any other time.
D. Mental alertness is lower in the late night than during the day, especially in people not accustomed to working at night.

I don't understand how the answer is (C). While attempting this question, I looked for the meaning of blackout and I got   "Blackouts are  temporary losses of consciousness  (syncope) or memory (amnesia) lasting seconds to minutes, often caused by reduced blood flow to the brain, alcohol misuse, or neurological conditions like epilepsy."

The argument mentions that the work of upgrading the 20 X-Ray Machines is difficult and  mentally taxing . Connecting all these, (C) should also be a good weakener as I think  "blackout"  is closer to  "mentally taxing"  than  "mental alertness" , also, we are  not given that X-ray technicians are not accustomed to working at night , thus, (D) doesn't look better weakener than (C).

Please help me understand where I am faltering here.

AbhishekP220108 · Answer

Hi  agrasan  let me try to help

Some X-Ray Machines at Cleveland clinic require certain upgrades. However, the work of upgrading the 20 X-Ray Machines is difficult and mentally taxing.- So there are 20 X ray Machines, an upgrade is needed such as installing some extra relay or putting some device , whatever the type of upgrade that we dont know, in these machines. Also, these upgradating work is difficult and put a mental load on those who are there to upgrade.

Physicians require X ray reports during the day, making it difficult for the X-Ray Machine technician to set aside time for upgrading each of the X-Ray Machines.- Upgrading is quite difficult to do during the day because physicians need X ray reports that is generated from these machines

Therefore, the most efficient time to upgrade the X-Ray Machines is between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. when the X-Ray Machines would be free.-Since in day time X ray Machines is under operation So most efficient time is night time and that too between 10pm to 8am

Question asks to create a doubt on conclusion that upgrades could be done more efficiently by scheduling them at night.

Lets step back and think

As per premise upgrading work is difficult and mentally taxing, what if the estimated time is too less as per some other similar work? What if there is some situation in upgrading process which is actually so much mentally taxing that makes it difficult to do during night.

This is what I can think

Option C says

"More blackouts occur between midnight and eight o'clock in the morning than at any other time." What I inferred from blackout is power cut. I dont think blackout refer here to mental condition, if the technicians who will be doing the upgrades are blacking out during work, hospitals will find other technicians who doesn't blackout. Now let's look at powercut,what if the hospital has power backup option, then still upgrading can take place. Not a strong weakner.

Option D "Mental alertness is lower in the late night than during the day, especially in people not accustomed to working at night." As premise discussed about mentally taxing upgrading work, if the work is scheduled during night and mental alertness is lower then the night time could not be efficiently. In my belief this is the strong weakner in comparison to C.

Hope this helps

bharathhr · Answer

How do we know whether the workers are accustmed to night work or not. it is also an assumption right . if we assume electricity is needed, it is also assumption

AbhishekP220108 · Answer

bharathhr can you please check this link
https://gmatclub.com/forum/some-x-ray-m ... l#p3735939 and let me know if this helps.

And for whether the workers are accustomed or not to night work depends on premise which talks about mentally taxing. So to question the most effective time we have to create a doubt on that. Whereas for electricity is needed or not that is not the point, the night is generally dark without the light so as option C says temporary blackout doesn't mean that there is only light source which comes from electricity. So even if there is temporary blackout occurs the upgrading work can still takes place right? That's why electricity is not the point of argument because it has not been discussed in argument

bharathhr

How do we know whether the workers are accustmed to night work or not. it is also an assumption right . if we assume electricity is needed, it is also assumption

guddo · Answer

You do not need to assume anything extra for D. It already covers both cases: alertness is lower at night in general, and it is  especially  lower for people not used to night work. So  even if they are accustomed , the first part still says night reduces alertness, which hurts efficiency on mentally taxing work.

C is weaker because you must add extra links: a blackout must happen during the upgrade, it must last long enough to matter, and it must actually stop the work. That is more  assumption heavy  than D.

guddo · Answer

Some X-Ray Machines at Cleveland clinic require certain upgrades. However, the work of upgrading the 20 X-Ray Machines is difficult and mentally taxing. Physicians require X ray reports during the day, making it difficult for the X-Ray Machine technician to set aside time for upgrading each of the X-Ray Machines. Therefore, the most efficient time to upgrade the X-Ray Machines is between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. when the X-Ray Machines would be free. 
 
Which of the following, if true, argues most strongly against the view that upgrades could be done more efficiently by scheduling them at night?

The argument says night is most efficient because machines are free then and the work is hard. The best counter is something that makes night work less efficient, especially due to the “mentally taxing” nature of the upgrades.

A. X-Ray Machine technicians are generally paid the same when they work during the night than when they work during the day

Same pay does not make night less efficient. It is basically neutral.

B. Energy costs in hospitals are greatly lower at night than they are during the day.

This supports night scheduling.

C. More blackouts occur between midnight and eight o'clock in the morning than at any other time.

Blackouts could disrupt work, but it is not as directly tied to “efficiency” for a mentally taxing upgrade task as option D.

D. Mental alertness is lower in the late night than during the day, especially in people not accustomed to working at night.

This directly attacks the key idea of “most efficient” for  mentally taxing  work: lower alertness means slower work and more errors, so night could be less efficient even if machines are free.  Strongest against.

E. Over the course of a year, hospital's X-Ray Machines will require periodical checks and upkeep

Irrelevant to whether upgrades are more efficient at night.

Answer: (D)

agrasan · Answer

Hi  guddo 
Thanks for your response but I think the question doesn't clarify much whether  "blackout"  mentioned in (C) refer to  mental unconsciousness  or  electricity power cut . If it is  mental unconsciousness  then (C) can also be a good weakener. Please let me know if I missed any important detail in the argument.

guddo · Answer

I think, even if “blackout” is read as a power cut, it still is not the best choice because it only says blackouts happen more often at night, not that they would reliably prevent or seriously slow the upgrades enough to outweigh the “machines are free” benefit. Option (D) is unambiguous and directly targets the argument’s key point: since the work is mentally taxing, lower alertness at night makes the upgrades less efficient.

Some X-Ray Machines at Cleveland clinic require certain upgrades. Howe

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