Self-study
Some people believe that saying that an organization is hierarchical says everything there is to say about how that organization operates. ███ ████████████████ ██████████ █████████████ ███ █████████████ ███ ███ ██████ █████ ███████████ ████████ ████████████████ ███████████ ████████ █████ ███████████ ████ ████ █████ ████████████████ ██████████ █████████████ ████████
Summary
The stimulus can be diagrammed as follows:
Notable Valid Inferences
The Public Works Department is hierarchical. A company being hierarchical does not reveal everything about the nature of that company’s operations—there are differences in how hierarchical companies operate.
22.
If the statements above are █████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████ ████ ██ ████ ██ ███ █████ ██ █████
a
The Public Works ██████████ ████████ ████ ████ █ ███████████████████ ██████████ ████████████ ████ ████ █ ████████████████ ██████████ █████████████
This could be false. It could be that the Public Works Department operates differently in a manner not characteristic to nonbureaucratic or bureaucratic organizations. The stimulus does not offer enough information for us to know what “differently” means in practice.
b
Any organization that ██ ████████████ ██ ████████████████ ███████████
This could be false. We know all bureaucratically controlled organizations are hierarchical, but we cannot assume this relationship goes both ways. As shown in the diagram, we assume it is a one-way relationship.
c
From the fact ████ █ █████ ████████████ ██ ████████████ ███████ ███ ████████ ██ █████████ █████ ███ ████ ████████████ █████████
This could be false. There may be some information one can gather from the fact that an organization is hierarchical—maybe all hierarchical organizations share certain qualities. We know, however, that there are some qualities they do not all share.
d
Not all hierarchical █████████████ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ████
This must be true. We know the Public Works Department is hierarchical and it operates differently from other hierarchical organizations. Therefore, (D) must be true.
e
Whether or not ██ ████████████ ██ ████████████████ ██████████ ███ ███████ ██ ██ ████ ███ ████ ████████████ █████████
This could be false. The stimulus does not suggest a company’s operations are unaffected by whether it is bureaucratically controlled or not. The stimulus only says that a company being hierarchical doesn’t tell us everything there is to know about its operations.