Workers may complain about many things at work, but stress is not high

Workers may complain about many things at work, but stress is not high on the list. In fact, in a recent survey a majority placed boredom at the top of their list of complaints. The assumption that job-related stress is the most serious problem for workers in the corporate world is thus simply not warranted.

Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

The first point to note is that boredom is a self-generated state of mind and is the stepping-stone to stress in a working environment.

(A) Those workers who are responsible for the planning and supervision of long-term projects are less likely to complain of either boredom or stress. -- The prompt does not talk about long-term projects in the survey. The survey was a general survey about job satisfaction.

(B) Workers who complain of boredom exhibit more stress-related symptoms than do those who claim their work is interesting. This finding weakens the argument. --- B is the choice.


(C) Workers responding to opinion surveys tend to emphasize those experiences that have happened most recently. --recentness is not given in the prompt.


(D) Workers who feel that their salaries are commensurate with the amount of work they do are less likely to complain of boredom. -- Salaries not given

(E) Workers are less likely to complain about work if they feel that their jobs are secure. -- Security of the job is outside the scope
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My first instinct was to go with B but now I am confused between B and C .If the bored employees are more stressed then why it is not chosen and for C it can be that the employees are not having any work as of now and therefore they considered boredom as their choice so the survey is not valid.can you help where I am going wrong

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manjari

One shouldn't suspect the question as invalid straightaway. Such a psyche will make you doubt even the genuine questions that appear in GMAT.

In C, you can see that it refers to some recent experiences. The question of recentness is not there in the prompt. Rules do not allow new information in the last minute, unless we re-draft the prompt to suit the sly intruder. It is like cutting one's head to suit the cap. Therefore, C is out of the reckoning.

In B, one can see that the whole issue starts with boredom and then develops into job-related stress. Boredom is the visible manifestation while stress is the sub-clinical, invisible undercurrent of a disinterested mindset. An experienced psychiatrist can spot this step-by-step syndrome. That is the reason one cannot detach boredom from stress. B emphasizes that the stress is not on top of the list is erroneous.
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B is the spot on here though for a moment C was on my mind but it can't be he answer.

Here's my opinion. As per C the it is generalized that workers respond to opinion surveys with their most experiences so in a way 'The assumption of job-related stress is the most serious problem for workers in the corporate world' must also have been based on opinion surveys where workers have emphasized on their recent experiences.

Hope this is making sense.
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Prethinking:

We're looking for an option that rejects the notion that job-related stress is not the most serious problem for workers in the corporate world.

Process of Elimination:

A. Wrong. Workers who are responsible for the planning and supervision of long-term projects may or may not represent the whole class of workers, and therefore, this information is insufficient to draw any conclusion over the matter in hand.

B. Correct. This option is in lines with the Prethinking.

C. Wrong. This is a tricky option, but it's wrong. Just because survey takers emphasize those experiences that have happened most recently doesn't give us a reason to believe that not only boredom but also stress is the major complain.

D. Wrong. Irrelevant.

E. Wrong. No impact on the argument.

Hi GMATNinja VeritasKarishma EducationAisle can you please help here. Below is my analysis

The conclusion of the argument that job-related stress is the most serious problem for workers in the corporate world is thus simply not warranted. is based on the result of the survey, and the result of the survey points to the fact that employees are bored but not stressed.

Option C implies that the result of the survey could vary with time as it depends on how employees are feeling at a certain point in time, Now doesn't this invalidate/undermine the results of the survey itself? and since the conclusion was based on the result of the survey, Option C weakens that conclusion?

I see how option B can also be a weakner as it says that if an employee is bored then it is also likely that that employee is also stressed, so one can't just say that if in survey stress doesn't come up then stress is nonexistent, but doesn't C does a better job in in-validating the argument?

In a survey people complained about boredom the most.
Conclusion: Stress is not the most serious problem.

We need to weaken it. How? By saying that people's claim may not be accurate and stress may still be the key issue.

(A) Those workers who are responsible for the planning and supervision of long-term projects are less likely to complain of either boredom or stress.

Anything about some specific workers will not affect our conclusion. We are talking about all workers in general.

(B) Workers who complain of boredom exhibit more stress-related symptoms than do those who claim their work is interesting.

What workers claim to be boredom seems to be linked to stress. So it is possible that stress is inducing boredom and hence, stress is still the key issue. This weakens our conclusion.

(C) Workers responding to opinion surveys tend to emphasize those experiences that have happened most recently.

Yes, I took a step back to evaluate it. Note that if what is happening most recently is boredom then we cannot say that stress is the key factor. Perhaps in recent times, boredom is the key factor. What was true some time back is irrelevant. We are concerned with whether at this point stress is the key factor. Nothing says that the recent experience is temporary. Hence, this does not weaken our conclusion.

(D) Workers who feel that their salaries are commensurate with the amount of work they do are less likely to complain of boredom.

Irrelevant

(E) Workers are less likely to complain about work if they feel that their jobs are secure.

Irrelevant

Answer (B)
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Hi VeritasKarishma thanks for your response, I have a follow up questions

Note that if what is happening most recently is boredom then we cannot say that stress is the key factor. - Agreed
Perhaps in recent times, boredom is the key factor. - Agreed
We are concerned with whether at this point stress is the key factor. Nothing says that the recent experience is temporary - Okay but the whole conclusion was based on the result of the survey, now if the survey is itself skewed which option C indicates then any conclusion based would not be true. So doesn't this makes C a better answer choice than B?

https://forum.powerscore.com/viewtopic. ... b&start=10

Found this link that details on the solution.
Hope this helps!

Even if option (C) were to say that surveys are not accurate, it would have no impact on option (B). We need to evaluate each option completely independently of other options. So option (B) explains how stress is the basic factor behind boredom too and hence explains the survey results and weakens the survey's conclusion. So (B) is correct.

As for (C), whether this characteristic of opinion surveys leads to accurate or inaccurate results, we cannot say. In some cases, it might make for better results because people are required to walk away from the past and in some cases it might make for worse results if survey wants to know how things have been, say, in the past 20 years. So what impact "recency" has on our survey, we cannot say. Does it make our survey more accurate or does it skew results, we cannot say. Does it help say that stress is indeed the key factor? No. Then ignore (C).
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