Challenge Your Exam Readiness With Our Free GRE Practice Questions

The conclusion asserts that mandatory overtime → improved delivery times. The cited reason is “more total hours.” For this to ensure faster delivery, added hours must translate into at least proportionally more effective work. If fatigue or burnout reduces productivity per hour, the net output could stagnate or decline despite longer hours. Thus Option A states a necessary assumption: that productivity per hour does not fall enough to offset the increased hours. If A were false, the conclusion becomes doubtful. Option B concerns wages, not delivery speed. Option C contradicts the goal by introducing scope creep that could independently delay delivery, but it is not an assumption the argument relies on. Option D is about stakeholder satisfaction, which could matter contextually but is not logically necessary for the causal claim relating overtime to delivery speed. On assumption questions, ask, “If this were false, would the conclusion collapse?” Fatigue reducing productivity would indeed undermine the argument, so A is necessary.