CR - Manhattan!

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CR - Manhattan!

by nitinmenon89 » Fri Jul 24, 2015 6:52 am
A vendor at a farmers' market wishes to increase sales of her organic radicchio. A 5-for-the-price-of-4 sale was successful in increasing sales of her organic peach marmalade, so the vendor decides to offer the same deal on the radicchio.

Which of the following is an assumption on which her plan depends?

a. Consumers enjoy radicchio as much as they enjoy peach marmalade

b. Consumers who are willing to purchase large quantities of marmalade, which has a shelf life of one year, will be similarly willing to purchase large quantities of radicchio, which has a shelf life of 5-10 days.

c. Radicchio is currently in season.

d. Due to the secret recipe used for the vendor's peach marmalade, the vendor has fewer competitors selling a comparable peach marmalade at the farmers' market than selling radicchio.

e. The profit from selling 5 bunches of radicchio for the price of 4 will be greater than the profit from selling 5 jars of peach marmalade for the price of 4.

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by MartyMurray » Sat Jul 25, 2015 8:34 pm
I am not the biggest fan of prethinking CR answers, as in doing that one can head down a wrong path or waste time. At the same time it's almost impossible not to prethink at times, and maybe this is one of those times as it seems likely that the assumption will be something about a similarity, or lack thereof, between peach marmalade and radicchio.

Now I will go through not just an explanation of the answer choices but also some of the thinking I would do to answer this.

A) This does discuss a question of similarity between something about radicchio and peach marmalade, but the possible similarity in question does not seem to be one that would affect a plan to have a 5 for 4 sale.

B) This jumps out as the answer. For the 5 for 4 sale to work the consumers have to be interested in buying 5 units of radicchio, and this brings up an issue that may affect the success of the sale, because the shelf life of radicchio is not similar to that of peach marmalade. So the plan will not work unless people are just as interested in buying large quantities of radicchio as they are in buying large quantities of peach marmalade, even though radicchio has a much shorter shelf life. I am almost certain this is the answer, but I am still going to check the rest as a way of making sure there is not something I have missed.

C) This does not seem relevant. If the vendor has radicchio to sell, then the vendor can sell radicchio whether it is in season or it is not.

D) This is tempting, slightly, but really it's not the point. The point is whether the vendor will sell more radicchio by using a 5 for 4 sale. Competition may not really matter, and especially competition probably does not matter as much as the assumption discussed in B.

E) This seems obviously wrong. Why would the profit have to be more per sale than the vendor made selling peach marmalade?

So B still looks best, and I am going with that.
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by GMATGuruNY » Mon Jul 27, 2015 5:35 am
nitinmenon89 wrote:A vendor at a farmers' market wishes to increase sales of her organic radicchio. A 5-for-the-price-of-4 sale was successful in increasing sales of her organic peach marmalade, so the vendor decides to offer the same deal on the radicchio.

Which of the following is an assumption on which her plan depends?

a. Consumers enjoy radicchio as much as they enjoy peach marmalade

b. Consumers who are willing to purchase large quantities of marmalade, which has a shelf life of one year, will be similarly willing to purchase large quantities of radicchio, which has a shelf life of 5-10 days.

c. Radicchio is currently in season.

d. Due to the secret recipe used for the vendor's peach marmalade, the vendor has fewer competitors selling a comparable peach marmalade at the farmers' market than selling radicchio.

e. The profit from selling 5 bunches of radicchio for the price of 4 will be greater than the profit from selling 5 jars of peach marmalade for the price of 4.
Conclusion: If the 5-for-the-price-of-4 deal is offered on radicchio, sales of radicchio will increase, just as sales of peach marmalade increased.

The assumption is WHAT MUST BE TRUE for this conclusion to be valid.
Apply the NEGATION TEST.
When the correct answer choice is negated, the conclusion will be invalidated.

Answer choice B, negated:
Consumers who are willing to purchase large quantities of marmalade will NOT be similarly willing to purchase large quantities of radicchio.
The negation of B invalidates the conclusion that sales of radicchio will increase.
Thus, B is the correct assumption -- WHAT MUST BE TRUE for the conclusion to be valid.

The correct answer is B.

Some test-takers will be tempted by A.
A, negated:
Consumers do not enjoy radicchio as much as they enjoy peach marmalade.
Even if consumers enjoy radicchio just a bit less than they enjoy peach marmalade, the deal on radicchio could still lead to an increase in sales.
Since the negation of A does not invalidate the conclusion, eliminate A.
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by nikhilgmat31 » Tue Jul 28, 2015 4:50 am
B leads

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by nitinmenon89 » Sat Aug 01, 2015 9:08 pm
Hi All,

Thank you for your response.

My concern regarding the question's OA is the introduction of shell life, which ultimately decides the answer.
Then, in that case there are other things that can be thought of.

For ex, assume that the size of each of radicchio is really very small and thus, more number of them are required to be purchased by the customers.

Please let me know your view on the same.

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by MartyMurray » Sun Aug 02, 2015 3:45 am
nitinmenon89 wrote:My concern regarding the question's OA is the introduction of shell life, which ultimately decides the answer.

Then, in that case there are other things that can be thought of.

For ex, assume that the size of each of radicchio is really very small and thus, more number of them are required to be purchased by the customers.

Please let me know your view on the same.
That is good thinking, and if it were the case that the size of each unit of radicchio is small and thus customers would be willing to buy five units, then the vendor's plan would probably work.

Just remember, this is not a weaken question, one which requires us to find something that indicates that her plan will not work. So whether that assumption matches the reality of the situation or it doesn't, we are just looking for an assumption upon which the plan depends.
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by ddg » Mon Aug 24, 2015 7:21 am
B is clearly the correct answer here :)






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