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07 Mar 2022, 06:00
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E
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!
Difficulty:
45%
(medium)
Question Stats:
69% (01:49) correct
31%
(01:49)
wrong
based on 810
sessions
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Omega Corporation has hired two management consultant firms, ManageFix! and EfficiencyRun, to help cut unnecessary costs by streamlining its corporate structure. By following ManageFix!'s plan, Omega Corp. will save more money than it would by following EfficiencyRun's plan. Therefore, by following ManageFix!'s plan, Omega Corp. will be doing the most that can be done to cut unnecessary costs due to inefficient corporate structure.
Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
A. ManageFix!'s fees are not greater than EfficiencyRun's fees.
B. Omega Corp. can implement ManageFix!'s plan in one of several ways, some of which are more expensive than others.
C. Omega Corp. has not yet determined with certainty that it wishes to make changes in its corporate structure.
D. Other than in its corporate structure, Omega Corp. does not waste money in other areas.
E. Unnecessary costs cannot be reduced more by implementing both plans together than by implementing ManageFix!'s alone.
Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
A. ManageFix!'s fees are not greater than EfficiencyRun's fees.
B. Omega Corp. can implement ManageFix!'s plan in one of several ways, some of which are more expensive than others.
C. Omega Corp. has not yet determined with certainty that it wishes to make changes in its corporate structure.
D. Other than in its corporate structure, Omega Corp. does not waste money in other areas.
E. Unnecessary costs cannot be reduced more by implementing both plans together than by implementing ManageFix!'s alone.
26 Mar 2022, 21:15
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Bunuel
OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
Answer= (E). The key to this problem lies in the expression “the most that can be done.” If the passage concludes that following ManageFix!’s plan is the most that can be done, the question arises: why wouldn’t following both plans be the most that can be done? It can only be true that ManageFix!’s plan alone does the most to cut unnecessary costs if combining it with EfficiencyRun’s plan is not feasible, as in (E).
The passage does not bring up the issue of fees for either consultancy firm (A). It’s not necessary to take this into consideration when finding the assumption, as neither our conclusion nor the evidence presented to support it brings up this point.
While different variations of the ManageFix! plan might cost more when varied (B), this is not a necessary assumption to explain the conclusion. We don’t know how EfficiencyRun’s plans compare to the different ManageFix! Plans in terms of cost-cutting, but we can assume that the argument here is referring to a ManageFix! plan that will save more money than an EfficiencyRun plan.
The idea that Omega Corp. hasn’t yet decided to implement a plan isn’t necessary for this argument to work (C). Furthermore, grammatical indicators, such as the use of the future rather than the conditional tense, indicate that the plan most likely will be implemented.
We don’t know where Omega Corp. wastes money in this argument (D), and we actually don’t need to. This is something that the plans themselves might address, but it’s not necessary to make this assumption to construct the argument.
27 Mar 2022, 16:38
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Bunuel
This problem is a really good example of how important it is to focus on the exact written conclusion when evaluating the answer choices. As the official explanation posted by Bunuel above indicates, an assumption is something that must be true in order for the conclusion to be valid. One way to properly judge whether an answer is something that must be true for the conclusion to be valid, however, is to cross-reference each answer choice with the exact wording of the conclusion.
Looked at this way, answers (A) and (D) both fall into the same error: they address the gist of the argument while missing the actual conclusion. Answers (A) and (D) might be correct if the conclusion had said something along the lines of selecting ManageFix! will save Omega the most money. However, the conclusion (in boldface above) only promises that ManageFix!'s plan will do the most to cut unnecessary costs due to inefficient corporate structure. Nothing about the fees paid to either consulting firm or waste of money in other areas is pertinent to deciding whether following the ManageFix! plan will be doing the most to eliminate costs due to inefficient corporate structure--answers (A) and (D) focus instead on other costs and so can't be necessary to the success of this conclusion.
If answers (A) and (D) are gist answers (that trap those who don't focus on the exact written conclusion), answer (B) is an irrelevant distinction. This trap answer works by focusing on something seemingly important (in this case, the expense of implementation) and then trying to muddy the waters around that seemingly important thing by suggesting that there might be some really extreme instance of that on the horizon (here, that the expense of implementation might be really high or really low). This style of answer is almost never right as an assumption, though; an assumption should be a clear addition to the argument that helps to validate the conclusion, so an answer that points out that there are many unspecified ways that things could turn out is almost the opposite of what you'd want.
Answer (C) again misses the point of the conclusion. Whether or not Omega ever implements this plan has nothing to do with whether, by following the ManageFix! plan, Omega would be doing the most it possibly could to cut the expenses in question. A correct answer should establish that this plan is the best way to cut those expenses in theory. By contrast, perhaps if the conclusion had said something like Therefore, Omega Corporation will soon cut its unnecessary expenses,, answer (C) would've been more necessary as a connector; however, even in that case, answer (C) would go against the validity of that conclusion by calling into question whether the implementation would ever come to pass, and the effect of a correct assumption is always to de facto strengthen a conclusion (usually by addressing and eliminating a potential weakener).
Answer (E) fits this last description of an assumption to a T. It focuses on the unnecessary costs in question (rather than other corollary costs), and it protects the conclusion from this potential weakener: What if Omega Corporation implemented both plans to cut their unnecessary expenses TO THE MAX?
As a side note, this answer and argument fit into the "One way is the only way" pattern that a lot of plan, proposal, and cause-and-effect arguments do. The pattern goes thus: A is better than B, so A is the best way to achieve the thing. The problems inherent to these arguments are 1) that they tend to fail to consider whether A and B could be combined (as was the case here) and 2) that they fail to consider whether another way C would be better still. Be on the look out for this and other CR patterns, and you'll save time and effort in CR!
