Critical Reasoning

Critics of sales seminars run by outside consultants point out that since 1987, revenues of vacuum cleaner companies whose employees attended consultant-led seminars were lower than revenues of vacuum cleaner companies whose employees did not attend such seminars. The critics charge that for vacuum cleaner companies, the sales seminars are ill conceived and a waste of money.

Which of the following, if true, is the most effective challenge to the critics of sales seminars?
(A) Those vacuum cleaner companies whose sales were highest prior to 1987 are the only companies that did not send employees to the seminars.
(B) Vacuum cleaner companies that have sent employees to sales seminars since 1987 experienced a greater drop in sales than they had prior to 1987.
(C) The cost of vacuum cleaner sales seminars run by outside consultants has risen dramatically since 1987.
(D) The poor design of vacuum cleaner sales seminars is not the only reason for their ineffectiveness.
(E) Since 1987, sales of vacuum cleaners have risen twenty percent.

I do not see the answer. no choice weaken the arguement

i like D

to weaken the critics' position:
critics say: seminars are ill-conceived/badly designed-> waste of money.

D : there is an alternative cause for the ineffectiveness of the seminars. the bad design of the seminars is not the only cause. weakens the critics' position.

i think correct choice would be A coz in D its talking about the poor design and that is out of scope as in the question it is given that seminars are ill conceived ans waste of money so we need to be in those boundary and think of the other reason. So by POE A would be the better choice as it says that "Those vacuum cleaner companies whose sales were highest prior to 1987 are the only companies that did not send employees to the seminars. " that means the companies who sent the employees to the seminar are not the ones whose sales were highest so it might be possible that these companies have lower sales before going to the seminar or the sales are not sensitive to the seminar, rather to something else that affected these companies even before the seminar..

A Seminars had participation only from companies whose sales were NOT the highest. So, seminars had no impact on their sales.

agree on A. thanks iamctse and ketkoag!

I also agree with answer A