Yorco and Zortech are two corporations that employ large numbers of full-time workers who are paid by the hour. Publicly...
GMAT Critical Reasoning : (CR) Questions
Yorco and Zortech are two corporations that employ large numbers of full-time workers who are paid by the hour. Publicly available records indicate that Yorco employs roughly the same number of such hourly wage workers as Zortech does but spends a far higher total sum per year on wages for such workers. Therefore, hourly wages must be higher, on average, at Yorco than at Zortech, since ______.
Which of the following most logically completes the argument?
Passage Analysis:
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| Yorco and Zortech are two corporations that employ large numbers of full-time workers who are paid by the hour. |
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| Publicly available records indicate that Yorco employs roughly the same number of such hourly wage workers as Zortech does but spends a far higher total sum per year on wages for such workers. |
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| Therefore, hourly wages must be higher, on average, at Yorco than at Zortech, since _____. |
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Argument Flow:
The argument starts by establishing two similar companies, then presents data showing one spends more on wages despite having the same number of workers, and concludes the higher-spending company must pay higher average wages. However, the logic requires an additional premise to be complete.
Main Conclusion:
Hourly wages must be higher, on average, at Yorco than at Zortech.
Logical Structure:
We have a mathematical logic: if Company A and Company B have the same number of workers, but Company A spends more total money on wages, then Company A must be paying higher average wages per worker. But this only works if we assume the workers are similar in some key way - that's the missing piece the blank needs to fill.
Prethinking:
Question type:
Logically Completes - We need to find the missing piece that makes the logical jump from 'same workers + higher total wages' to 'higher average hourly wages' rock solid.
Precision of Claims
The claims are quantitative comparisons: 'roughly the same number' of workers, 'far higher total sum' on wages, and 'higher average hourly wages'. We're dealing with mathematical relationships between total spending, number of workers, and average pay rates.
Strategy
Since this is a 'Logically Completes' question, we need to find what assumption or principle makes the math work perfectly. The argument assumes that if you have the same number of workers but spend way more total money on wages, then each worker must be getting paid more on average. We need to identify what condition must be true for this math to hold up - basically, what could mess up this simple division if it weren't addressed.
This choice about Zortech spending more on non-wage benefits is completely irrelevant to our argument. We're trying to explain why Yorco's total wage spending is higher, and what Zortech spends on benefits (which aren't wages) doesn't help complete the logic about wage differences. This doesn't address any potential gap in the reasoning about hourly wage rates.
This talks about skill levels required for the work, but this actually works against what we need. If anything, we'd want to ensure that factors that might justify different pay rates (like skill requirements) are roughly equal. However, this doesn't directly complete the logical gap about why higher total wages must mean higher average hourly wages. The skill level comparison is interesting but doesn't address the core mathematical relationship.
This choice about the proportion of hourly workers is actually irrelevant because the argument already states that both companies employ 'roughly the same number' of hourly wage workers. Whether hourly workers make up 50% or 90% of each company's total workforce doesn't matter - we're told the absolute numbers of hourly workers are similar, and that's what matters for the wage calculation.
This is exactly what we need! The argument assumes that if you have the same number of workers but higher total wages, then average wages must be higher. But what if one company had lots of overtime work paid at premium rates? That could explain higher total wages without necessarily meaning higher base hourly rates. By stating that overtime is rare at BOTH companies, we eliminate this alternative explanation and make the mathematical logic bulletproof: same workers + minimal overtime + higher total wages = higher average hourly wages.
This choice about the highest wages at each company tells us nothing about average wages. Even if Yorco's top earners make more than Zortech's top earners, this doesn't help us conclude anything about the average hourly wage across all workers. We could have a situation where Yorco pays a few workers much more while paying most workers the same or even less than Zortech pays its workers.