Question 29.
Privacy-challenged office workers may find it hard to believe, but open-plan offices and cubicles were invented by architects and designers who thought that to break down the social walls that divide people, you had to break down the real walls, too. Modernist architects saw walls and rooms as downright fascist. The spaciousness and flexibility of an open plan would liberate homeowners and office dwellers from the confines of boxes. But companies took up their idea less out of a democratic ideology than a desire to pack in as many workers as they could. The typical open-plan office of the first half of the 20th century was a white-collar assembly line. Cubicles were interior designers’ attempt to put some soul back in.
Question Explanation
After reading the entire paragraph, it can be inferred that the main idea of the passage is that while the inventors of the open-plan offices had the liberation of office dwellers from boxes in mind, the companies used it to pack as much people as possible inside.
Option A is incorrect as the passage makes no mentions about workers satisfaction.
Option B is incorrect as it misrepresents the timeline given in the passage. Cubicles existed earlier and only later were wall free office spaces invented.
Option D is incorrect as it could not be inferred from the passage that the companies that did not believe in democratic ideology
Option C correctly encapsulates the main idea of the passage and hence it is the correct answer.
No video explanation yet — we're on it and uploading soon!
