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Consultant: In most large organizations, the majority of people who end up in leadership positions are extroverted. These people are likely to actively seek leadership positions and make themselves known when such positions are available. When an organization is looking for internal candidates to fill a leadership position, choosing only from among these extroverted people necessarily excludes many other candidates who, for any number of reasons, do not put themselves forward. Thus, organizations that are recruiting from within for leadership positions can increase the number of potentially strong performers in their candidate pool by actively seeking out candidates from among the introverted people in the organization.
Which of the following statements would, if true, most support the consultant's reasoning?
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| In most large organizations, the majority of people who end up in leadership positions are extroverted. |
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| These people are likely to actively seek leadership positions and make themselves known when such positions are available. |
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| When an organization is looking for internal candidates to fill a leadership position, choosing only from among these extroverted people necessarily excludes many other candidates who, for any number of reasons, do not put themselves forward. |
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| Thus, organizations that are recruiting from within for leadership positions can increase the number of potentially strong performers in their candidate pool by actively seeking out candidates from among the introverted people in the organization. |
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"The consultant starts by describing the current state (extroverts dominate leadership), explains why this happens (they're self-promoting), identifies the problem this creates (missing out on other talent), and then offers a solution (actively recruit introverts too)."
"Companies can get more strong leadership candidates by actively seeking out introverted people in their organization instead of only choosing from those who put themselves forward."
"The argument uses a problem-solution structure. The premises establish that current selection methods create a limited candidate pool because they only capture self-promoting extroverts, while the conclusion logically follows that expanding the search to include introverts would increase the pool of potentially strong performers."
Strengthen - We need to find information that would make the consultant's recommendation more believable and convincing
The consultant claims organizations can 'increase the number of potentially strong performers' by actively seeking introverted candidates. Key precision points: 'potentially strong performers' (quality claim), 'increase the number' (quantity claim), and 'actively seeking out' (activity claim)
To strengthen this argument, we need new information that supports the idea that introverted people would actually make good leaders if given the chance. The consultant's logic assumes introverts have leadership potential but are just being overlooked. So we want evidence that either shows introverts have leadership qualities, or that current selection methods are missing good candidates, or that actively seeking introverts actually works
This actually weakens the consultant's argument rather than strengthening it. If more qualified candidates are extroverted, then the current system that favors extroverts might already be capturing the best talent. This would make actively seeking introverts less beneficial since we'd be expanding into a pool with proportionally fewer qualified candidates.
This contradicts the consultant's opening premise that 'the majority of people who end up in leadership positions are extroverted.' If the proportions are already equal, then there's no problem to solve and no need for the consultant's recommendation.
This doesn't strengthen the argument because it suggests that at least some qualified introverts are already putting themselves forward. If anything, this reduces the need for organizations to actively seek them out, since they're already making themselves available through normal channels.
This is about internal vs external recruiting, but the consultant's argument already focuses on internal recruitment ('recruiting from within'). This choice doesn't address whether actively seeking introverted internal candidates would improve the candidate pool quality.
This perfectly strengthens the consultant's argument. The consultant claims that actively seeking introverted candidates will increase the number of 'potentially strong performers,' but this assumes introverts can perform as well as extroverts. Choice E confirms exactly that - extroverts have no performance advantage. This means the current system that favors extroverts is missing equally capable introverted talent, making the consultant's recommendation highly valuable.