og13 100

jiujiong

100. Debater: The average amount of overtime per monthworked by an employee in the manufacturing division of the Haglut Corporationis 14 hours. Most employees of the Haglut Corporation work in the manufacturingdivision. Furthermore, the average amount of overtime per month worked by anyemployee in the company generally does not fluctuate much from month to month.Therefore, each month, most employees of the Haglut Corporation almostcertainly work at least some overtime.

The debater’s argument is most vulnerableto criticism on which of these grounds?

(A) It takes for granted that the manufacturing divisionis a typical division of the corporation with regard to the average amount ofovertime its employees work each month.

(B) It takes for granted that if a certain average amountof overtime is worked each month by each employee of the Haglut Corporation,then approximately the same amount of overtime must be worked each month byeach employee of the manufacturing division.

(C) It confuses a claim from which the argument’sconclusion about the Haglut Corporation would necessarily follow with a claimthat would follow from the argument’s conclusion only with a high degree ofprobability.

(D) It overlooks the possibility that even if, onaverage, a certain amount of overtime is worked by the members of some group,many members of that group may work no overtime at all.

(E) It overlooks the possibility that even if mostemployees of the corporation work some overtime each month, any one corporateemployee may, in some months, work no overtime.

Argument Evaluation

Situation Most of the employees of the Haglut Corporation work inthe manufacturing division, where employees average 14 hours per month inovertime. The average amount of overtime per month for employees at Haglut doesnot fluctuate much from month to month.

Reasoning What is the argument’s greatest weakness? The argument’s conclusion is thatalmost certainlyeach month most of the employees ofHaglut work at least some overtime. Answer choice (D) identifies the argument’sgreatest weakness because it points out how the conclusion of the argumentcould be false even if all of the supporting information were true. Forexample, it could be that less than half of the employees work any overtime atall, but those that do work overtime work much more than 14 hours per month.

A The argument leaves open the possibility that in somedivisions of the corporation, the average monthly overtime of its employees isquite different from 14 hours, even if (as the argument states) that averagedoes not change much from month to month.

B The argument does not assume that there is a monthlyamount of overtime worked by each employee of the manufacturing divisionequivalent to the company-wide average monthly overtime per employee.

C This does not identify a weakness that can be detectedin the argument. Since the claims mentioned here are not specified, the passageprovides no evidence that clearly indicates that this type of confusion isplaying a role in the argument.

D Correct.The argument ignores the possibilitythat most of the employees of Haglut work no overtime at all in a particularmonth—which is quite consistent with the argument’s assertion that the averagenumber of monthly overtime hours per employee within the manufacturing divisionis 14.

E The possibility described by this is not overlooked bythe argument, because this possibility is consistent with the conclusion. Itcould easily be that most employees of the corporation work some overtime eachmonth—as the conclusion envisions—but that there are always some employees whodo not work any overtime.

看到答案之后可以知道怎么想的，但是看不懂og对于错误选项的解释。。。。特别是C选项，为什么错了呢？
请大牛们帮忙啊！！！！！

tiffany琨

Simplifying the Argument: Average overtime for employee in manufacturing is 14 hours. Most employees work in manufacturing. Therefore most employees work at least some overtime.

Attacking the Argument: Here we are dealing with the average number of hours. In general, average equals total divided by number of elements, in this case workers. If you had 5 workers each working 14 hours overtime a month, you end up with the same number of overtime hours as four lazy workers and one uber-industrious worker who clocks 70 hours of overtime a month. However, the scenario is very different: all workers working overtime vs. one out of five working overtime. In much the same way, this logic can be extrapolated to Halgut Corporation. The debater's conclusion that MOST employees work at least some over time is not valid if a few workers work an inordinate amount of overtime while the rest of the company works no over time.

这是GC论坛上的解释，觉得挺清晰的了，我也是看了这个然后明白点了。大概就是，原文中论据是第一，在H工厂的制造部门的工人平均的每月加班时间是14小时。第二，大部分工人都在制造部上班。第三，不管在什么部门，工人每月的平均加班时间都相差不多没有太大的波动。结论是，每个月，绝大部分的H上班的工人基本都要加班。那么就要考虑一个问题，就是平均数这个问题，如果一小部分人加班时间超过14小时，比如说加班50个小时，而其余部分人基本不加班，那么，除下来的平均数也是很高的。所以，回到题目中，最后的结论是most，也就是我们要攻击的地方，有可能工厂里的大部分人都不加班而一小部分人加班的时间多到令人发指，那平均的加班时间也就高了。就好比一个班里有五个学生，考试之后统计下来的平均分是76分，就说这个班的同学绝大多数成绩都在70分以上，可实际情况是，有两个考一百的，剩下三个才考了60 ，所以，大多数同学成绩都在70分以上这个结论是不靠谱的。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。额。。。。。。可能解释的不好，希望不要误导你才好。
这个是网址，你可以去原网站看看解释http://gmatclub.com/forum/debater-the-average-amount-of-overtime-per-month-worked-by-135640.html

jiujiong

我知道为什么答案选D，我主要是不太清楚OG对错误答案，特别是C选项的解释。不过还是谢谢啦！！！！！

tiffany琨

我知道为什么答案选D，我主要是不太清楚OG对错误答案，特别是C选项的解释。不过还是谢谢啦！！！！！

-- by 会员 jiujiong (2012/10/22 12:16:50)

额。。好吧。。。那你去看看那个网址，上面又对错误选项的详细解释，和OG的不一样，不过是英文的。