Manager: I recommend that our company reconsider the decision to completely abandon our allegedly difficult–to–use c...

shunhe on June 16, 2020

Hi @AllisonJ,

Thanks for the question! So this one’s a tough one, because the correct answer, while clearly better than the rest, might not be as well supported as we usually like it. But it’s still better than the others, as we’ll see. Going over the stimulus quickly, a manager is arguing that his company should reconsider replacing some old software with new software. They say that other companies around officially have the new software, but a lot of their employees still use the old software. Now we’re asked for the statement most strongly supported by the manager’s statements.

(A) tells us that the current (old) company software is as flexible as the new one, but we’re told in the passage that the new software package is at least advertised as more flexible. Either way, we can’t conclude from the passage that the old software is “as flexible.”

(B) says that the familiarity is more important than flexibility or initial ease of use, but we’re not told that the manager wants to stick with the old software because of familiarity, which isn’t mentioned in the passage.

(C) tells us that the new software would lack capabilities of the old software, but again, this isn’t mentioned in the passage at all.

(D) is similarly unsupported; we’re not told that two classes of employees would be made, and indeed, if everyone can use the old software, they should be able to use the new software too (since it’s supposed to be easier to use). And if everyone can’t use the old software, then this divide already exists.

(E) is the correct answer, since even though it’s not super solid, there is some proof for it in the passage based on the nearby companies in the region, which we shouldn’t assume are vastly different from this current company.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.