「Question No. 32」

　　The brief passage:

　　「The vice president of human resources at Climpson Industries sent the following recommendation to the company's president.

　　“In an effort to improve our employees' productivity, we should implement electronic monitoring of employees' Internet use from their workstations. Employees who use the Internet from their workstations need to be identified and punished if we are to reduce the number of work hours spent on personal or recreational activities, such as shopping or playing games. By installing software to detect employees’ Internet use on company computers, we can prevent employees from wasting time, foster a better work ethic at Climpson, and improve our overall profits.”」

　　Instruction:

　　Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.

　　指明brief passage(材料文)中的argument(conclusion, recommendation, prediction)是什么。 It is argued that Climpson Industries should implement electronic monitoring of employees’ Internet use. The author believes that this change could prevent employees from wasting time, fosters a better work ethic, and improve the companies’ overall profits. 然后(应对着指令的)套话。 However, the assumptions of the argument suffer a number of logical flaws.

　　找出assumption，通常是隐藏的，没有直说的。The author expects an improvement of overall profits based on an assumption that the reduced time employees spend on personal and recreational activities creates profits that compensate for the cost of implementing the electronic monitoring system. 然后，进一步解释来指出assumption的疑点。The monitoring may require ether additional employment or technology, and as a result, there may be additional cost.

　　找出assumption，通常是隐藏的，没有直说的。Another assumption is that employees waste time only on the Internet. 然后，进一步解释来指出assumption的疑点。As a matter of fact, the staff may waste time on matters that do not need the Internet. For instance, they may chat or read magazines. 找出assumption，通常是隐藏的，没有直说的。 In addition, even if they use the Internet, the author cannot assume that the use of the Internet happens on the company computers. 然后，进一步解释来指出assumption的疑点。In fact, workers could use their personal devices—their personal cell-phones, laptops or tablet PCs—to circumvent the Internet monitoring at the workstations. ← 这一段包含了两个逻辑疑点。

　　变体写法(没有按照规矩的“先说assumption再分析具体情况”)。Even if the monitoring successfully reduces the time employees waste on personal and recreational use of the Internet, the fostering of working ethics is not guaranteed. 而是在这里出现对于assumption的描述。The assumption at this point is that workers’ dedication of time is everything of work ethics. 然后，进一步解释来指出assumption的疑点。 As a matter of fact, work ethics include more than how much time an employee spends on the job. For example, being meticulous and patient to the job is also part of a good work ethic. It is likely that although the staff spend all of their work hours on the job, they do not work with proper care, accuracy or patience. They may also deliberately work with low efficiency when their use of the Internet is monitored.

　　变体写法(没有按照规矩的“先说assumption再分析具体情况”)。 In addition, the overall profits are also not guaranteed. 而是在这里出现对于assumption的描述。The assumption at this point is that the more time staff spend on their jobs, the greater profits they will produce. 然后，进一步解释来指出assumption的疑点。This is a questionable assumption because a companies’ profitability is subject to a number of factors, such as whether the market responds favorably to the company’s products or services, and whether the company fares on reasonable levels of cost.

　　分析五个逻辑疑点，得分最计划。

　　Conclusion

　　Therefore, unless the author justifies all the stated and unstated assumptions above, the proposed Internet monitoring would not help achieve the predicted results.