CR: I recently doubled my salary by taking a new job. I’ve

[direstraits007]

I recently doubled my salary by taking a new job. I’ve been working at a company for two days and now realize that the company’s workers are mean-spirited and egotistical. I have decided that high paying companies have unfriendly employees.
Which of the following, if true, would weaken the above conclusion?

A. The work environment brings out the worst in people.
B. The company has 150,000 employees.
C. Salary is more important than work environment.
D. The benefits of the new job outweigh the unfriendly people.
E. Egotistical workers can often outperform less self-confident employees.

source: 800scoreVerbal

OA:B

My take on this is A, bcoz from the argument structure it seems a Cause Effect argument to me. Here the cause is "High paying companies are making employees mean spirited, egotistical and unfriendly". ie.

High paying --> employees mean spirited, egotistical and unfriendly

But option A weaken it by an alternate cause:

work environment --> brings out the worst in people.

So the work environment is the cause not High paying Company. A high paying company may have bad or good work environment which effects the employees nature. So, to me A weakens the argument better.

What say ?

Thanks

GeeMate.

[Ben Ku]

I don't think this argument is a very coherent argument. It makes a lot of unreasonable jumps, so it doesn't seem very realistic.

Tackling your question:

Geemate:

My take on this is A, bcoz from the argument structure it seems a Cause Effect argument to me. Here the cause is "High paying companies are making employees mean spirited, egotistical and unfriendly". ie. High paying --> employees mean spirited, egotistical and unfriendly

We want to weaken the conclusion. Having an alternate cause does not negate the original cause, so it does not necessarily weaken the conclusion.

The answer choice (B) implies that because this person has been there only two days, there is no way he could know that all 150,000 employees are mean. This would weaken the conclusion because it strikes down the assumption that the employees that he has met represents all the employees at this company.

Hope that helps.