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Critical Reasoning
Many companies now have employee assistance programs that enable employees, free of charge, to improve their physical fitness, reduce stress, and learn ways to stop smoking. These programs increase worker productivity, reduce absenteeism, and lessen insurance costs for employee health care. Therefore, these programs benefit the company as well as the employee.
Which of the following, if true, most significantly strengthens the conclusion above?
(A) Physical fitness programs are often the most popular services offered to employees.
(B) Studies have shown that training in stress management is not effective for many people.
(C) Regular exercise reduces people’s risk of heart disease and provides them with increased energy.
(D) Physical injuries sometimes result from entering a strenuous physical fitness program too quickly.
(E) Employee assistance programs require companies to hire people to supervise the various programs offered.
The conclusion in the passage is that the employee assistance program (Which enables employees to improve their physical fitness, reduce stress and learn ways to step smoking) benefit the company as well as the employee.
We have been asked to locate the choice which strengthens this conclusion.
We should therefore look for that choice which implies that the program is beneficial both to the company and to the employee.
(C) says that regular exercise reduces people’s risk of heart disease (beneficial to the employee) and provides them with increased energy (which will benefit the company in which they are working). So, it is (C) which says that the program is beneficial both to the company and the employee, and is the answer.
(A) mentions that such programs are popular with employees, but does not indicate how they are beneficial to the company as well as the employee, and is not the answer.
(B) in fact, contradicts the conclusion that the program benefits all employees, and is not the answer.
(D) also contradicts the conclusion that the program benefits employees, and is not the answer.
(E) does not mention any benefit that accrues to the employees because of the program. On the contrary, it says that it may cause additional expenditure to the company, meaning that it does not benefit the company either. So, (E) contradicts, and does not strengthen, the conclusion, and is not the answer.
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