Bunuel wrote:
When complaints against staff are brought to Human Resources at Sarpedon Inc., the Human Resources department cannot always determine whether there was just cause for the complaint. This is usually due to insufficient evidence provided by the claimant. Nevertheless, Sarpedon will sometimes dismiss an employee because of such a complaint, even if unsubstantiated.
Which of the following conclusions can most properly be drawn from the information above?
(A) Many Sarpedon employees accused of any wrongdoing contest the charge, claiming their own innocence, because they are familiar with Human Resources policy.
(B) In certain kinds of harassment, victims are reluctant to press charges, for fear of reprisals or unfavorable judgments from other colleagues.
(C) It is possible that an unsubstantiated complaint could be unfairly held against the employee that it implicates.
(D) In a 1-on-1 conflict in which the only two employees involved give conflicting view of each other's words and actions, managers have to make a judgment at their own discretion.
(E) Many of the employees dismissed from Sarpedon would have substantial grounds for a lawsuit concerning their dismissal because of this Human Resources policy.
OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
We know some proportion of HR complaints lack sufficient evidence to establish the complaint with proof. We don't know what proportion of the complaints are like this: it might be 0.01% or 99%, we don't know. Victims sometimes give less than complete info—we don't know why. We know that HR policy has left open the possibility of dismissing someone even though the complaint has not been substantiated, but we don't know whether this has ever happened; if it has happened, we don't know how frequent it might have been.
The credited answer is (C). We don't know what "held against" might mean—perhaps a written warning or a stern disciplinary talk by one's superior—but whatever it is, it may go as far to include outright dismissal. If Sarpedon is willing to dismiss someone, then it stands to reason that they might perform some lesser disciplinary action, "holding" something "against" someone, even though that person was innocent. This is a possibility left open by their policy. Choice (C) is the best answer.
As for (A), we can't conclude that the majority of employees dismissed were so treated because of unsubstantiated complaints. That could be true, or it could be that only one person or even no one was dismissed because of unsubstantiated complaints, and most everybody else was dismissed for something clear and unambiguous and documented. For this reason, we can't conclude either (A) or (E), because we have no idea where this scenario accounts for the majority of dismissals or only a tiny fraction.
Choice (B) would give us some insight into why a victim of harassment might not want to follow through completely with a harassment complaint. It helps to explain or clarify, but it is not a conclusion that we can draw from the argument.
Similarly, choice (D) paints a picture of a scenario, such as a "he-said-she-said" conflict, in which a manager might make a judgment call that doesn't accord with what actually happened. Like (B), this helps to explain how a detail might play out, but it is not a conclusion we can draw from the argument.