Companies O and P each have the same number of employees who work the same number of hours per week.
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.
不明白关于D、E的解释？牛牛指教！谢谢！ | 
