* CAT CR question

[varun.pendharkar]

Concerned about various forms of workplace harassment, a city attorney’s office instituted a publicity campaign last year encouraging victims of such harassment to come forward and file reports of the harassment. During the year following the inception of the publicity campaign, the frequency of harassment reports filed with the city attorney’s office tripled. The publicity campaign has therefore been successful, in that it has inspired more victims of workplace harassment to pursue their complaints.

Which of the following most seriously weakens the conclusion of the passage above?
A> The increase in harassment complaints has consisted almost exclusively of additional complaints of racial harassment; complaints of other varieties of harassment have not increased significantly.
B> Although the number of complaints has tripled, the number of complaints that have resulted in successful prosecutions or civil penalties for the harassers has not increased significantly.
C> Many individuals who have brought complaints within the past year were previously unaware that the behavior to which they had been subjected was regarded legally as harassment.¬
D> The publicity campaign has emphasized the fact that there will be no legal reprisals or other negative consequences for complainants whose complaints are deemed false or invalid.
E> The city attorney’s office originally instituted the campaign in response to falling numbers of workplace harassment complaints.

Given explanation
"The passage concludes, on the basis of an increase in the number of harassment complaints, that additional genuine victims of harassment have come forward to file complaints, a conclusion requiring the assumption that those who have come forward since the inception of the campaign are, indeed, genuine victims of harassment. Therefore, any reason for individuals who are not genuine victims of harassment to fabricate such complaints will weaken the conclusion."

I somehow do not see that the conclusion states that the success is depending on number of genuine applicants. It just concludes that the policy has inspired "in that it has inspired more victims of workplace harassment to pursue their complaints." i.e. more victims are following\chasing the complaint in the court" which is only undermined by less conviction\penalty rates. That is why I think B is a good choice

OA: D

Please help

Thank you

[george.kourdin]

without reading the answer choice...

brainstorm some of the reasons that will undermine the conclusion. what are the main assumptions that the attorney is making? increase in # of complaints = policy worked. great except what if people are just complaining for the sake of complaining? how many of these complaints are legitimate complaints that are actually linked to workplace harrasment

a) doesn't weaken. i think that this actually strengthens the conclusion
b) possible candidate because it's saying that an increase in the number of complaints did not actually lead to an incraese in the number of penalties.
c) thats awesome except that its irrelevant
d) okay so basically they went out there and flat out said that "don't worry guys. file literary any complaint you want. we won't penalize". this can plausibly lead to an increase in the number of irrelevant complaints which would undermine the conclusion.
e) another piece of irrelevant news....

go back to (b). the question doesn't actually deal with prosecution/penalties. we can try negating both b and d and see what happens with the conclusion. we can also try to insert them into the argument. both will yield the same result.....yep.

[varun.pendharkar]

I think the phrase" pursue their complaints" implies going to court. less conviction\penalties means less people going to court or actually following up on their complaints. That is why B is good.

If the phrase "pursue their complaints" means just reporting the issue the answer choice D can fit. But I don't think to pursue a complaint means simply to report but to follow up on something.

[messi10]

Hi Varun,

I think George is correct in his analysis.

Remember that you have to weaken the conclusion. The conclusion clearly states: "The publicity campaign has therefore been successful, in that it has inspired more victims of workplace harassment to pursue their complaints."

The aim of the campaign was to encourage more victims to come forward. The aim was not to put the perpetrators in jail. You don't run campaigns for that, you already have a justice system in place. The whole idea behind running the campaign was just to get things going i.e. encourage victims to come forward. The right answer choice has to weaken that.

Choice B does not undermine the fact that the campaign was unsuccessful. It simply comments on the stats of what happened afterwards.

Hope this helps

[RonPurewal]

hi --

this is the GMAT PREP VERBAL folder, which is the wrong folder for this post.
please re-post your question in the appropriate folder -- MGMAT CAT VERBAL if this problem is from our CATs.

thanks. we'll delete this thread in 3-5 days.