PrepTest 144, Section 3, Question 5
Most people who have taken a seminar for(26 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(12 more words not shown)
- ASome of the(14 more words not shown)
- BMost people whose(19 more words not shown)
- CMost seminars for(17 more words not shown)
- DMost people who(21 more words not shown)
- EMost people who(21 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Maybe they're spending the whole workday organizing their desks.
A neatly arranged office can be useful. But imagine someone repeatedly sorting files, rearranging supplies, and tidying the workspace instead of getting the actual job done. The desk looks better. The person hasn't necessarily become more efficient.
That's the distinction we need here. The seminar really did improve most participants' organization. We accept that. What needs explaining is why the improvement so rarely carried over into greater efficiency.
What we’re looking for
For this discrepancy question, I'd look for a cost of becoming organized. If keeping everything organized takes up the time that better organization would otherwise save, we can get more organization without more efficiency. We don't need to show that the seminar made people worse at their jobs. We need to explain why becoming more organized didn't produce the expected gain.
Working the answers
- A
Some highly efficient people being relatively disorganized shows that organization isn't the only possible route to efficiency. But what happened to the people who took this seminar? A doesn't explain why their increased organization so rarely improved their efficiency. A fact about some other efficient workers doesn't supply the missing account of this change.
- B
This concerns people who generally don't take the seminars. Our puzzle concerns the people who did take one and became more organized. Knowing that many workers with poor organizational skills stay away doesn't explain the results for the participants.
- C
Being selected for management training doesn't tell us whether someone will become more efficient. We would have to add a story about how that training or the seminar's design interferes with the person's work. The answer gives us a target audience, not an explanation of the outcome.
- D
Starting below average could help explain why participants needed the seminar. It doesn't explain the failure to improve efficiency. Someone could begin very disorganized, become better organized, and start getting more done. D leaves us asking why that didn't happen for most participants.
- ECorrect
The seminar causes participants to spend a great deal of time organizing. That gives us the cost we were looking for: the organizing itself takes time away from other work. They can become better organized while losing the expected efficiency benefit to all the time spent maintaining that organization. Both facts now fit together.
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