An internal survey revealed that some employees at Company Y had called in sick in order to take care of a sick child. The company's CEO instituted free on-site day care in hopes of reducing the number of employees engaging in this practice. However, the number of employees who called in sick to care for a sick child was actually higher in the sixth month of the on-site day-care program than it had been the month before the program was instituted.

Each of the following, if true, might account for the free day-care plan's apparent lack of success EXCEPT:

A)Many parents at Company Y employ nannies, who care for both sick and healthy children.
B)Many parents declined to use the day care for fear that their sick children would catch a second illness from another sick child.
C)The on-site free day-care center is noisy, hot, and uncomfortable.
D)The sixth month of the on-site day-care program happened to fall at the height of flu season.
E)During the six-month period in question, the number of employees at Company Y increased by 25%.

The OA is A. But doesn't parents with nannies will not be using the on-site day care anyway? How could it attribute to the lack of success if it doesn't apply to them to begin with?

EXACTLY!!! The question asks which one doesn't contribute to an explanation, and you've done an excellent job of explaining why A doesn't contribute to an explanation! Remember to read the question stem; EXCEPT questions can be tricky.. :)

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Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor

How does 'C' explain the paradox that the - "number of employees who called in sick to care for a sick child was actually higher in the sixth month"

Hi Nilendu,
I wouldn't get too wrapped up in the sixth month aspect. If the daycare is noisy, hot, and uncomfortable, by the sixth month many parents are probably not using the daycare anymore. The sixth month may just be a random fluctuation in how many sick children there are. The main idea is that the daycare is NOT solving the absence problem because the conditions are so poor that parents can't leave their children there; thus, they have to take care of the children themselves.

Another possibility is that the daycare conditions are so stressful that children are getting sick simply because they are at the daycare, and again, the conditions are bad enough that a sick child cannot be left there.

I think the main point is that A is the one that most clearly does not contribute to an explanation of the daycare's failure. For a lot of these you have to compare alternatives and then make the best choice.

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Jamie Nelson
ManhattanGMAT Instructor