Examkin

Question

Difficulty: HardCausal Flaws and Confounding Variables

A three-year study of two hundred software development companies observed that firms instituting mandatory daily meditation sessions for their engineering teams reported a 35 percent reduction in post-release software bugs compared to firms without such programs. The researchers concluded that daily meditation directly enhances cognitive focus, thereby reducing coding errors.

  1. Firms that instituted mandatory meditation sessions were also significantly more likely to have simultaneously adopted automated continuous-integration testing protocols during the study period.Answer
  2. B
    Decreasing post-release software bugs generally leads to higher client satisfaction scores and increased long-term contract renewal rates for software development firms.
  3. C
    The study tracked software bugs over a three-year period during which major cloud hosting providers introduced upgraded server infrastructure across the entire software industry.
  4. D
    Engineers at firms with mandatory meditation sessions reported higher overall job satisfaction than engineers who did not participate in daily mindfulness exercises.
  5. E
    Frequent post-release software bugs often cause severe operational strain that prevents engineering managers from scheduling non-essential workplace wellness activities.

Answer

The argument assumes that because mandatory daily meditation correlated with a reduction in software bugs, the meditation directly caused the reduction. The correct answer weakens this causal claim by introducing a confounding variable: firms adopting meditation were also far more likely to implement automated continuous-integration testing protocols, which provides an alternative explanation for the decline in software bugs.
The correct answer identifies a major confounding variable. If companies that instituted daily meditation were also significantly more likely to adopt automated continuous-integration testing, the reduction in post-release bugs could easily be attributed to the automated testing tools rather than to meditation. This severely weakens the author's conclusion that meditation directly caused the improvement.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the premise and conclusion of the argument
Premise: Companies with mandatory meditation had 35% fewer post-release software bugs. Conclusion: Daily meditation directly causes the reduction in coding errors.
Understanding the precise logical transition from correlation to causation reveals the vulnerability of the argument.
2
Analyze the causal vulnerability
The author assumes no third factor (confounding variable) caused the decrease in software bugs in the meditation group.
Causal arguments on the GMAT are frequently weakened by demonstrating that an unmentioned third variable is responsible for the observed effect.
3
Evaluate the answer choices to locate a confounding variable or alternative cause
The option identifying simultaneous adoption of automated continuous-integration testing introduces a third variable that directly causes bug reductions.
If the firms with meditation also introduced automated testing, the testing—not the meditation—could be the true driver of the 35% reduction in bugs.

Key Concept

Causal Reasoning and Confounding Variables
Rate this question

Topics

Causal Flaws and Confounding Variables

More questions from this topic