Ted, a senior employee, believes he is underpaid and attempts to compensate by routinely keeping short hours, though ...

Skylar on December 28, 2019

@nivensdc, thanks for your question.

Here's what we know from the passage: Ted works short hours because he feels that he is underpaid. Other employees have to work harder to make up for Ted, but Ted is still making "valuable, unique, and perhaps irreplaceable contributions." Ted's supervisor (Tatiana) notices a deficit in Ted's performance but does not replace him.

We are asked to identify the answer choice that offers a principle to explain Tatiana's decision not to replace Ted despite the deficit in his performance.

(A) offers this missing justification and is therefore correct. Under the principle that supervisors should only replace employees if they know that the employee's work can be performed equally well by another employee, Ted's supervisor was right not to replace him. This is because Ted's work is "valuable, unique, and perhaps irreplaceable," so no other employee could perform it equally well.

(B) is incorrect because if focuses on payment. This is irrelevant because we are only asked to justify "Tatiana's decision" not to replace Ted, which is unrelated to proportional pay.

(C) is incorrect because it would mean that Tatiana (Ted's supervisor) had no power to decide if Ted should be replaced. If this were the case, Tatiana would not even have the option to make a decision, but the question asks us to justify "Tatiana's decision," so we know that she did.

(D) is incorrect because it focuses on workers' attitudes, not Tatiana's decision.

(E) is incorrect because, even if true, it is too vague to actively justify or explain Tatiana's decision not to replace Ted. Also, the fact that Ted began to work shorter hours and a "deficit" in his performance followed could suggest that there is some level of connection between an employee's contributions and time spent working.

Does that make sense? Let us know if you have any other questions and best of luck with your studies!