PT 48, Section 4, LR #23, Weaken EXCEPT Question Forum

[secretad]

This is the question concerning consultants and the correlation of most efficient managers having excellent time management skills. The conclusion that the company president offered was implied causation of recommending that the middle-level managers have available to them a seminar that offers techniques of time management.

This is a weaken EXCEPT question, thus all four wrong answers will weaken the argument and one will either do nothing or strengthen it.

I can discard answer choices B, C, E as I can see that it weakens that causation from a correlation in the stimulus.

However, the correct answer is D and I chose A.

I checked the Manhattan forums for help on this one, but the explanation for why A is wrong did not help me.

A) The consultants use the same criteria to evaluate mangers' efficiency as they do to evaluate their time management skills.

So what if the consultants use the same criteria to evaluate the two things? Just because you use the same criteria does not mean that the calculations or the conclusions will be the same.

I agree that (D) does not weaken the argument, I just need help in how to get rid of A. Thanks guys.

[secretad]

I have been thinking about this even more.

Even if the criteria are the same, it would not weaken the illegitimate causation from correlation in the stimulus.

Perhaps, even with the criteria being the same, more weight is attributed to certain factors although the criteria is the same.

[secretad]

Bump for choice (A)

[maxpower430]

iirc (might have this wrong as i don't have pt 48 in front of me), the argument is taht b/c improved time management causes better efficiency, the managers should be offered time management. i believe the reason A weakens the argument is b/c if it were the case that they used the same criteria to evaluate time management and efficiency, then you wouldn't know which was the actual problem for the manager. i.e. you wouldn't know if the manager was inefficient or had poor time management, since the criteria for both was the same. it could be the case that they had great time management but were simply really inefficient with how they got things done, in which case attending a time management seminar wouldn't really help them. i wish i had the problem in front of me but i remember that being my reasoning for eliminating A when i saw it.

[davesmystery]

I chose A over D as well because I tend to make dumb assumptions under pressure in an attempt to figure out the solution. I wound up thinking that A just didn't have any effect on the argument and that D weakened it by saying the managers were already efficient and didn't need the seminar. After reviewing I realize I misread D, the question refers to all middle level managers, while D only refers to managers that are already efficient. Since we don't know anything about managers that are already efficient, or even if any of them are a part of the group of managers in question, it has no impact on the argument. A weakens the argument, like maxpower said, because if they are using the same metric to measure efficiency and time management, you are only measuring one thing and then trying to evaluate it two ways which doesn't work.