Critical Reasoning

Well i made mistake in this CR of Manhattan CAT 3

Fedora Convertibles began selling the Freewheeler - its newest convertible sports car - in May of this year. Fedora sent out a press release last month indicating that the Freewheeler's sales for May, June, July, and August totaled over 50,000. As a result, Fedora will in all likelihood easily meet its stated sales goal of 120,000 for Freewheeler's first year of release.

Which of the following would be most useful in order to evaluate this prediction?
Fedora is the market leader in this category of automobile.
Freewheeler is significantly more expensive than similar models produced by Fedora's competitors.
Fedora released a similar model in May of the previous year.
Sales of similar models of cars are typically much higher in the summer months than at any other time of the year.
Freewheeler sales are important to meeting the sales goals of Fedora as a company

I was down to C and D
and chose C but OA is D

The reason i dismissed D is ,ok in place where i live and many other places in earth may,june,july,august is not summer season.It is rainy season.
The location of company is not given.
Now suppose if the company was in home town,HOW will that conclusion and evidence hold...
it will be irrelevent....
(means high sales were in rainy season...nothing to take with summer)

what i mean to say is:
those seasons are not universal through out the world.
So is it good question.

I chose C
Ok,if they have launched similar car last month they can look for trend what happened then.
I know it is not necessary that what happen to earlier car,this car will have same result but i think it is best and most logical answer.

thanks

or do i need to know what happens in question makers country.When is summer,when is winter and so on.

Just a query.

this is familiar question for me. the answer is D

sales of cars are good in may ,june,july and august ( total 50000)
in order to reach a figure of 120000 the sales of car should be in the same rate in other months.but that company should know that the sales of such cars may or may not be good except summer then they cant reach the figure. fails to do so they fail in their plan

pradeepkaushal9518 wrote:this is familiar question for me. the answer is D

sales of such cars may or may not be good except summer then they cant reach the figure. fails to do so they fail in their plan

thanks
but
how do you know those seasons are summer
in my country those are rainy season.

thanks

good question frank

in our country ( india) mainly may,june and mid of july is summer seanson and august, sept are rainy seasons. rest oct,novemeber, december, jan , feb are winter season.

so sales in may and june may be good more than average so they reach a figure of 50000. in rainy season it may be less than average.

hence these leads to option D

pradeepkaushal9518 wrote:good question frank

in our country ( india) mainly may,june and mid of july is summer seanson and august, sept are rainy seasons. rest oct,novemeber, december, jan , feb are winter season.

so sales in may and june may be good more than average so they reach a figure of 50000. in rainy season it may be less than average.

hence these leads to option D

Thanks
Yes and that excatly is my question mate.

It may be summer in india but in my country it is rainy season and in some other countries(of which students take GMAT) it may be autum for them.

So is this question made for students of specific country where months mentioned in question are summer.

I think GMAT is universal exam.

Not lets consider may,june and mid of july is rainy season,now look at the question and correct answer again with that fact.
Does conclusion and correct answer still hold?
i dont think so.

thanks
The question is assuming that may,june and mid of july is summer season through out the world and it is same for all test takers.

frank1 wrote:

pradeepkaushal9518 wrote:good question frank

in our country ( india) mainly may,june and mid of july is summer seanson and august, sept are rainy seasons. rest oct,novemeber, december, jan , feb are winter season.

so sales in may and june may be good more than average so they reach a figure of 50000. in rainy season it may be less than average.

hence these leads to option D

Thanks
Yes and that excatly is my question mate.

It may be summer in india but in my country it is rainy season and in some other countries(of which students take GMAT) it may be autum for them.

So is this question made for students of specific country where months mentioned in question are summer.

I think GMAT is universal exam.

Not lets consider may,june and mid of july is rainy season,now look at the question and correct answer again with that fact.
Does conclusion and correct answer still hold?
i dont think so.

thanks
The question is assuming that may,june and mid of july is summer season through out the world and it is same for all test takers.

At the end of the day, the GMAT is an American test, written BY Americans, FOR Americans. The fact that the rest of the world has decided to adopt the GMAT as the standard for MBA admissions, either because B-schools want to adopt an international Brand name in order to appear international, or because the local market for MBAs is too small to justify writing a local version of the GMAT, is unimportant: the GMAT, as an American test, does indeed have a cultural bias to towards North American/western culture, and this has been discovered in numerous researches on the topic of standardized testing. Such is the game, and the rest of us must play it to the best of our ability. (although it must be said that the GMAC are aware of criticism regarding this issue, and are taking counter measures to make the test more "global", or "minority friendly").

The bottom line is this: the question doesn't note whether Fedora operates in America/europe, where these months are the summer months, or some other place (Australia/NZ?), where these months are the rainy season. But for every GMAT question, unless otherwise noted, the default location/setting is "North America", with all relevant implications.

frank1 wrote:

pradeepkaushal9518 wrote:good question frank

in our country ( india) mainly may,june and mid of july is summer seanson and august, sept are rainy seasons. rest oct,novemeber, december, jan , feb are winter season.

so sales in may and june may be good more than average so they reach a figure of 50000. in rainy season it may be less than average.

hence these leads to option D

Thanks
Yes and that excatly is my question mate.

It may be summer in india but in my country it is rainy season and in some other countries(of which students take GMAT) it may be autum for them.

So is this question made for students of specific country where months mentioned in question are summer.

I think GMAT is universal exam.

Not lets consider may,june and mid of july is rainy season,now look at the question and correct answer again with that fact.
Does conclusion and correct answer still hold?
i dont think so.

thanks
The question is assuming that may,june and mid of july is summer season through out the world and it is same for all test takers.

frank1 - Since this is an evaluate the argument question, what months are the summer months does not matter. The question stem only asks for information that will be useful in evaluating the prediction. We are not being asked to strengthen or weaken the prediction.

(D) "Sales of similar models of cars are typically much higher in the summer months than at any other time of the year."

From the passage we know that from May-August the Freewheeler sold on average 12,500 units per month (50,000/4). At this rate Fedora will sell 150,000 cars this year. If this happens then the prediction that "Fedora will in all likelihood easily meet its stated sales goal of 120,000 for Freewheeler's first year of release" will be true. In order to evaluate this prediction we need to know if the May-August sales rate of 12,500 per month is representative of the sales rate for the rest of the year.

Let's look at this question assuming different summer months.

Scenario 1 - Summer Months are May, June, July, and August
If answer choice D is true, then in this scenario the sales rate of 12,500 per month from May-August is the peak sales rate. We can expect sales of the Freewheeler to be much less than 12,500 per month from October through April. This will lead to annual sales that are significantly less than 150,000. This weakens the prediction that "Fedora will easily meet its sales goal of 120,000".


Scenario 2 - Summer Months are NOT May, June, July, and August
If answer choice D is true, then in this scenario the sales rate of 12,500 per month from May-August is not the peak sales rate. We can expect sales of the Freewheeler to be much greater than 12,500 per month from October through April. This will lead to annual sales that are significantly greater than 150,000. This strengthens the prediction that "Fedora will easily meet its sales goal of 120,000".

In both of these cases the information in answer choice (D) helps us evaluate the prediction. In one case it helps support the prediction and in the other case it weakens the prediction. If the question stem asked us to strengthen or weaken the prediction then, as Geva mentioned, we would have to assume a North American location. However, in this case we can answer the question without making any assumptions about location.