Which of the following, if true, weakens Weinstock’s argument? A) The

QUESTION

Which of the following, if true, weakens Weinstock’s argument?

A) The Legal Division consumes more office supplies per person than any other department.
B) Beginning lawyers require a great deal of supervision before they can contribute effectively.
C) The Legal Division could be reorganized so that each manager supervises matters related to a single subject area.
D) No manager in the organization can be dismissed without a lengthy and costly procedure.
E) The total number of employees supervised by Legal Division managers is lower than the total number of employees supervised by managers of other departments.

ANSWER

Answer: C
Explanation: C) Weinstock says that Legal Division managers can’t supervise more employees because the managers need to be up-to-date on a wide variety of subject areas. But if Choice C were true, then the managers could focus on a single subject area, which undercuts Weinstock’s justification for keeping their span of control lower. Choice A is irrelevant because the issue at hand is personnel, not office supplies. Choice B strengthens Weinstock’s argument by making the manager’s job sound hard enough as it is. Choice D, if anything, strengthens Weinstock’s position by making it sound harder to get rid of those well-paid managers. Choice E basically says that the Legal Division doesn’t have more supervised employees than everyone else combined, but that doesn’t tell us whether the managers have too many employees each. There is no necessary relationship between the size of a department and the span of control in that department.