PrepTest 107, Section 1, Question 19
Arbitrator: The shipping manager admits that he decided(77 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(5 more words not shown)
- AA manager should(8 more words not shown)
- BA manager should(11 more words not shown)
- CA manager should(9 more words not shown)
- DA manager should(13 more words not shown)
- EA manager, and(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A contractor caused the delay. Does that settle whether the manager shares the blame?
At first, I want to know what went wrong. A manager might plan reasonably and still face an unexpected disaster. The fact that the new facility failed to open on schedule doesn't automatically tell us the manager should have prevented the lost business.
But the arbitrator adds a crucial fact: the manager knew this contractor typically ran late. Think of someone who has lived in a city for years and repeatedly gets caught in the same predictable traffic. That excuse looks different from a visitor encountering an unfamiliar delay for the first time. Once you know the pattern, planning around it becomes a reasonable expectation.
What we’re looking for
The question asks for the principle behind the arbitrator's argument. The manager didn't have to cause the contractor's delay to have a responsibility to prepare for it. I'd look for a rule saying that foreseeable problems should be taken into account when making plans. That connects this manager's prior knowledge to the claim that he shares responsibility.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Managers should account for foreseeable problems when deciding what to do. The contractor's usual delays made a late opening foreseeable to this manager. By scheduling the old facility's closure without adequately preparing for that possibility, he failed to account for a risk he knew about. That is the arbitrator's stated reason for assigning him some blame.
- B
This is closer to the manager's defense: he ought to be able to rely on the contractor. The arbitrator's point is that this particular manager knew there was a reason not to rely on prompt completion without a contingency plan. B doesn't express that responsibility to prepare.
- C
Making a contractor finish promptly is different from planning for the possibility that the contractor won't. The arbitrator criticizes the manager's lack of preparation, not a failure to supervise the contractor into completing the job on time. A manager might be unable to prevent a delay and still be able to prepare for it.
- D
We aren't told the manager directly supervises the contractor. More importantly, the arbitrator's reason is prior awareness of likely delays, not a general duty to answer for a subordinate's mistakes. This principle adds a relationship the passage hasn't established.
- E
The word 'only' conflicts with the allocation of blame. The arbitrator says the manager is to blame too, alongside the contractor. E would place responsibility exclusively on managers. It also replaces the specific failure to plan for a known risk with a much broader rule about every project failure.
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