According to records maintained by each company, the employees of Company O had fewer job-related accidents last year than did the employees of Company P. Therefore, employees of Company O are less likely to have job-related accidents than are employees of Company P.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the conclusion above?

(A) The employees of Company P lost more time at work due to job-related accidents than did the employees of Company O.

(B) Company P considered more types of accidents to be job-related than did Company O.

(C) The employees of Company P were sick more often than were the employees of Company O.

(D) Several employees of Company O each had more than one job-related accident.

(E) The majority of job-related accidents at Company O involved a single machine.

B is the best answer.

The data used to support the conclusion come from the companies’ own records. Since, however, choice B indicates that, as compared with Company O, Company P tends to overstate the number of job-related accidents, choice B weakens the conclusion drawn and is the best answer.

1Choice A does not weaken the conclusion, but is simply a consequence that would be expected given the data. 2The relevance of employees’sicknesses (choice C) cannot be assessed without information about the links, if any, between sickness and job-related accidents. 3Choices D and E both give reasons for predicting a smaller likelihood that any arbitrary employee of Company O will have a job-related accident, and thus support the conclusion.