The supervisor of a tailoring unit finds that the operators whose tables are tidiest at the end of a shift have the fewest pieces sent back by the checker, and she tells the unit that keeping a tidy table makes an operator's work more accurate. Which of the following, if true, would best account for the supervisor's finding without any effect of tidiness upon accuracy?

The supervisor treats the tidy table as the cause and the clean checking record as its result; the option turns the pair round by showing that mistakes are what make a table untidy. Accuracy produces tidiness, and no habit of tidying need affect stitching at all. One uniform checking standard would if anything shore the finding up, the mid-shift break falls on everybody, and where the larger tables stand does not link tidiness to rejected pieces.