Parajumbles Question 5 - CAT 2022

Question

Some company leaders are basing their decisions on locating offices to foster innovation and growth, as their best-performing inventors suffered the greatest productivity losses when their commutes grew longer.

Shorter commutes support innovation by giving employees more time in the office and greater opportunities for in-person collaboration, while removing the physical strain of a long commute.

This is not always the case: remote work does not automatically lead to greater creativity and productivity as office water-cooler conversations are also very important for innovation.

Some see the link between long commutes and productivity as support for work-from-home scenarios, as many workers have grown accustomed to their commute-free arrangements during the pandemic.

Correct Sequence: 2143
Explanation: Sentence 2 outlines the core premise, exploring how shorter daily commutes actively preserve employee innovation by saving physical energy and fostering in-person workplace collaboration. Sentence 1 validates this claim with empirical corporate data (2-1), showing that modern corporate leaders choose office locations strategically because their top inventors face heavy productivity drops when commutes lengthen. Sentence 4 shifts the perspective to how some view this connection as an argument for work-from-home models, since the pandemic made people used to eliminating commutes entirely. Sentence 3 steps in as a critical counter-punch to that WFH logic, opening with "This is not always the case..." and explaining that full remote arrangements miss out on critical office water-cooler innovations.
FundaMakers Tip: Tracking Structural Critiques. Pay careful attention to what demonstrative indicators like "This is not always the case" are refuting. Sentence 3 is refuting the idea presented in sentence 4 (that the commute-productivity link proves remote work is universally optimal). This makes 4-3 an essential block.