A new greenville times question?

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A new greenville times question?

by fangtray » Sun May 06, 2012 3:11 pm
Following several years of declining advertising sales, the Greenville Times reorganized its advertising sales force. Before
reorganization, the sales force was organized geographically, with some sales representatives concentrating on citycenter
businesses and others concentrating on different outlying regions. The reorganization attempted to increase the
sales representatives' knowledge of clients' businesses by having each sales representative deal with only one type of
industry or of retailing. After the reorganization, revenue from advertising sales increased.


In assessing whether the improvement in advertising sales can peoperly be attributed to the reorganization, it would be helpful to find out each of the following EXCEPT:

a. two years ago, what proportion of the greenville times'' total revenue was generated by advertising sales

b. has the ciruclation of the greenville times increased substantially in the last two years?

c. Has there been a substantial turnover in personnel in the advertising sales force over the last 2 years?

d. before the reorganization, had sales representatives found it difficult to keep up with relevant developments in all the types of businesses to which they were assigned?

e. has the economy in greenvile and the surrounding regions been growing rapidly over the last 2 years?
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Sun May 06, 2012 3:23 pm
Before reorganization: salesforce divided by region

After reorganization: salesforce divided by industry

Result: Ad revenue increased

We're looking for the answer that would NOT allow us to determine whether the reorganization led to the increase in ad revenue. The other four choices will help us make that determination.

A--We don't particularly care about the paper's total revenue, so this is the correct answer.

B--If the circulation has gone up, advertisers will pay higher rates, leading to more ad revenue.

C--Perhaps poor salespeople were replaced with better salespeople and this led to an increase in ad revenue.

D--This could mean that ad revenue was lagging due to the salesforce's lack of knowledge; addressing that problem may have lead to increased revenue.

E--If the economy has improved, then perhaps the increased ad revenue is due to that rather than the reorganization.
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by fangtray » Sun May 06, 2012 6:21 pm
Bill@VeritasPrep wrote:Before reorganization: salesforce divided by region

After reorganization: salesforce divided by industry

Result: Ad revenue increased

We're looking for the answer that would NOT allow us to determine whether the reorganization led to the increase in ad revenue. The other four choices will help us make that determination.

A--We don't particularly care about the paper's total revenue, so this is the correct answer.

B--If the circulation has gone up, advertisers will pay higher rates, leading to more ad revenue.

C--Perhaps poor salespeople were replaced with better salespeople and this led to an increase in ad revenue.

D--This could mean that ad revenue was lagging due to the salesforce's lack of knowledge; addressing that problem may have lead to increased revenue.

E--If the economy has improved, then perhaps the increased ad revenue is due to that rather than the reorganization.

Hi Bill, thank you for helping me. I am still somewhat confused however, if we say that substantial sales force turnover suggests poor slaes people were replaced with better sales people, isn't that a bit out of scope? I can't seem to find the correlation between employee turnover, and the termination of poor sales people. Even if we could suggest that it was poor sales people who were laid off, how do we know good sales people were hired?

For A, if 2 years ago, total revenue was generated by advertising sales was...say 10% before the reorganization, and after the reorganization, it was about 30%, then we could say that there was an increase in sales due to reorganization..in other words, i'm trying to justify it like this.. However, I even feel this is somewhat stretching too far...but it appears to me as if it stretches less than C.

if we want to find out if X leads to Y, then answer A asks the question: if there was no X, would Y occur?

But obviously I am wrong, since this was an OG question. Please let me know where I am going wrong with my thinking.

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by vk_vinayak » Mon May 07, 2012 2:28 am
I chose A.

c. Has there been a substantial turnover in personnel in the advertising sales force over the last 2 years?

My thinking: If there is substantial turnover, (massive recruitment) in the ad-sales force (of Greenville Times), then I assumed that more people will bring more business. So, reorganization might not have helped here.
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Mon May 07, 2012 7:43 am
We don't know that poor salespeople were replaced with good salespeople, but it is a definite possibility. "Useful to evaluate" questions like this tend to be a bit more abstract than traditional strengthen and weaken questions. We don't know the actual answers to the questions in the answer choices, but we need to consider various possibilities and how they would affect the conclusion.

For A, we don't care about the proportion of overall revenue that ad revenue makes up. The end result given in the stimulus is that "revenue from advertising sales increased." The proportion of overall revenue could increase even if ad revenue went down (say overall revenue decreased by 30% and ad revenue decreased by 5%) or it could decrease if ad revenue went up (overall revenue increased by 30% and ad revenue increased by 5%)
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by Gaurav 2013-fall » Mon May 07, 2012 7:49 am
great one! thanks