Logical Reasoning

PT122 · S1 · Q4 Industry experts expect improvements in

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Industry experts expect improvements in job safety training to lead to safer work environments.

Given that ...

Experts expect improvements in job safety training to lead to safer work environments.

Why is it that ...

The manufacturers who improved job safety training during the 80s tended to have a higher number of on-the-job accidents in the months immediately following the changes in the training programs?

Evaluate / Goal

We know the training programs were improved and that improvements should lead to safer environments, but there must be something that was different in the short term that can explain an uptick in on-the-job accidents.

Let's look for an answer that tells us something else that was different in the immediate aftermath of changing training programs that could plausibly be connected to more on-the-job accidents.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy in the passage above?

A similar survey found that
Deepens Paradox
This new survey makes the first sentence sound dead wrong. We want an answer that lets us believe that improvements do have a positive effect on safety of work environments but gives us a way to explain a short-term increase in accidents following a change in training programs.
2% picked this
Correct
Manufacturers tend to improve their
Why this is right
This gives us a conditional that says, "If a manufacturer improves its job safety training program, then it probably was increasing the size of its workforce". So we know that for most of these manufacturers who improved their job safety training, they were simultaneously increasing the size of their workforce. Would an bigger-sized workforce be a way to explain a higher number of on-the-job accidents? Sure! More people, more chances for injury. If your company is going from 100 to 200 employees, then even if you give those 200 employees better job safety training, you'll still probably end up with a higher number of injuries. You might go from 8% of employees to 5% of employees getting an accident on the job, but 8% of 100 (8) is less than 5% of 200 (10).
Skill tested: Paradox · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
74% picked this
Manufacturers tend to improve job
No Impact
This answer won't explain the uptick in accidents in the months immediately following the improved job safety training, because this is talking about an uptick in accidents in the months immediately preceding the training. For example, in the Spring we see that on-the-job accidents are increasing, so in Summer we hold improved job safety training (which should be leading to a safer work environment), but, the stimulus tells us, in the Fall months immediately following the new and improved training, we see more increase in on-the-job accidents. This answer doesn't help us why there's more increase in accidents after the improved training.
17% picked this
It is likely that the
Opposite
If the uptick on-the-job accidents were merely a random fluctuation, we could reconcile this paragraph by saying, "Okay ... so improved training programs do lead to safer work environments; it just so happens that all these companies that improved their training programs had increased on-the-job accidents because of a random fluctuation.
4% picked this
Significant safety measures, such as
No Impact
Telling us what happened before the job safety training is not going to provide us with some distinction "in the months immediately following the changes in the training programs" that would explain an uptick in accidents, unless it would have some distinct effect in those months. But this is talking about safety measures being in place. They seemingly would be just as in-place in the months following the training program as they were before the program, so there's no way for them to explain why things are different after the program (why there's a change in the number of accidents).
2% picked this

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