PrepTest 156, Section 4, Question 16
Manager: I plan to put together a successful(52 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the manager's(12 more words not shown)
- Apresumes that factors(12 more words not shown)
- Brelies on research(10 more words not shown)
- Ctakes for granted(10 more words not shown)
- Doverlooks the possibility(19 more words not shown)
- Econfuses the goals(23 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Will these independent workers actually want the same thing?
I can imagine assembling a team of strong specialists: someone for email, someone for Instagram, and someone for YouTube. Each could be excellent at a particular job. But expertise doesn't automatically give the team a shared direction. What if the YouTube specialist wants to chase trends while the Instagram specialist wants to protect a consistent brand? Letting everyone work independently might create separate projects that pull against one another.
What we’re looking for
The research includes a condition that matters: the loosely bound groups do better when they share a common purpose. The manager has selected people who dislike tightly knit groups without showing that they will commit to that shared purpose. I also wonder whether findings about groups generally will apply to this marketing team, but the missing common purpose is the clearest problem. For the flaw question, look for the assumption that these independent people will be on the same page.
Working the answers
- A
This would mean taking several factors that together ensure success and insisting that each factor is required for success. The manager doesn't argue that every successful team must contain these particular workers or use this structure. The claim is that the proposed strategy will succeed, and the missing support concerns a shared purpose.
- B
'No apparent relevance' is too strong. The study concerns loosely bound groups, which resembles the kind of team the manager wants to assemble. We can question whether the findings apply without denying that connection. The problem is that the manager hasn't established the condition under which the study found the advantage.
- C
The manager doesn't need to believe flexible teams always work significantly better in every setting. The research itself limits the comparison to groups with a shared purpose. The error is applying that finding to this team without showing it meets the condition, not asserting an unrestricted rule about all teams.
- DCorrect
The workers' preference for independence might make it hard for them to commit to a common goal. Then they would lack the very feature the research requires. Being highly skilled and loosely connected wouldn't be enough to justify the manager's confidence that this strategy is bound to succeed.
- E
The argument doesn't identify a particular goal held by the manager and then mistake it for a different goal held by the employees. We aren't told that the employees share a goal at all. That missing agreement is the problem, rather than confusion between two stated sets of goals.
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