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Brindon Bolt

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by kaycee » Wed Jun 03, 2009 8:57 pm
In Brindon County, virtually all of the fasteners—such as nuts, bolts, and screws—used by workshops and manufacturing firms have for several years been supplied by the Brindon Bolt Barn, a specialist wholesaler. In recent months many of Brindon County’s workshops and manufacturing firms have closed down, and no new ones have opened. Therefore, the Brindon Bolt Barn will undoubtedly show a sharp decline in sales volume and revenue for this year as compared to last year.

The argument depends on assuming which of the following?

A. Last year the Brindon Bolt Barn’s sales volume and revenue were significantly higher than they had been the previous year.
B. The workshops and manufacturing firms that have remained open have a smaller volume of work to do this year than they did last year.
C. Soon the Brindon Bolt Barn will no longer be the only significant supplier of fasteners to Brindon County’s workshops.
D. The Brindon Bolt Barn’s operating expenses have not increased this year.
E. The Brindon Bolt Barn is not a company that gets the great majority of its business from customers outside Brindon County

Please explain your choices otherwise there is no point in having discussion.
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by ankur_ty » Wed Jun 03, 2009 10:51 pm
A - NO - Is not the complete answer and doesn’t talk about the argument given - In recent months many of Brindon County’s workshops and manufacturing firms have closed down"

B - NO - Just talks about the remaining workshop and fails to point out impact of the closed once.

C. - NO - Can be a probable answer but lacks the strength as in the question there is no mention of other firms, though it does say that wholesale supplier but still doesn’t talk about the status of other firms.

D. - NO -Doesn’t support the argument

E. - YES- This looks like the best choice of answer as it explains the dependency of Brindon Bolt Barn on the business within the country.
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by kaycee » Wed Jun 03, 2009 11:20 pm
@ankur_ty

its clearly mentioned in the stem that
1 many of Brindon County’s workshops and manufacturing firms have closed down
2 no new ones have opened

Statement 1 + statement 2 + choice B i.e. remaining workshops/firms have smaller volumeof work to do
Together these three facts imply that overall demand of product of Brindon Bolt (BB) would be sharply down.

I agree that you may counter argue this by coming up with the possibility of having majority of BB clients from outside Brindon county. But in this way, you can also counter argue choice E by saying that although many workshops/firms have closed down in Brindon county but demand by the remainging ones has shoot up hence no sharp decline in the demand for BB products.

Moreover, i dont understand when you say " there is no mention of other firms" since it's a assumption based question in which we have to accept whatever offered in answer choices as true. In other words, there is no such thing as SCOPE in assumption based question.
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by rocketsbball » Thu Jun 04, 2009 12:36 am
If you negate choice E; the argument is weakened.......
IMO E
whats the OA....
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Re: Brindon Bolt

by amazonviper » Thu Jun 04, 2009 4:35 am
kaycee wrote:In Brindon County, virtually all of the fasteners—such as nuts, bolts, and screws—used by workshops and manufacturing firms have for several years been supplied by the Brindon Bolt Barn, a specialist wholesaler. In recent months many of Brindon County’s workshops and manufacturing firms have closed down, and no new ones have opened. Therefore, the Brindon Bolt Barn will undoubtedly show a sharp decline in sales volume and revenue for this year as compared to last year.

The argument depends on assuming which of the following?

A. Last year the Brindon Bolt Barn’s sales volume and revenue were significantly higher than they had been the previous year.
B. The workshops and manufacturing firms that have remained open have a smaller volume of work to do this year than they did last year.
C. Soon the Brindon Bolt Barn will no longer be the only significant supplier of fasteners to Brindon County’s workshops.
D. The Brindon Bolt Barn’s operating expenses have not increased this year.
E. The Brindon Bolt Barn is not a company that gets the great majority of its business from customers outside Brindon County

Please explain your choices otherwise there is no point in having discussion.
IMO B. I believe this has to be assumed for the argument to exist since if we negate this effect, i.e. if the units that are open have more business than usual then the steep decline might not happen.

I was a little confused between B and E. I did not choose because even if E was true , Brindon can still have more business from Brindon county and hence not have a steep decline in profit .

Please let me know the OA.
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Re: Brindon Bolt

by vinaynp » Thu Jun 04, 2009 7:35 am
kaycee wrote:In Brindon County, virtually all of the fasteners—such as nuts, bolts, and screws—used by workshops and manufacturing firms have for several years been supplied by the Brindon Bolt Barn, a specialist wholesaler. In recent months many of Brindon County’s workshops and manufacturing firms have closed down, and no new ones have opened. Therefore, the Brindon Bolt Barn will undoubtedly show a sharp decline in sales volume and revenue for this year as compared to last year.

The argument depends on assuming which of the following?

A. Last year the Brindon Bolt Barn’s sales volume and revenue were significantly higher than they had been the previous year.
B. The workshops and manufacturing firms that have remained open have a smaller volume of work to do this year than they did last year.
C. Soon the Brindon Bolt Barn will no longer be the only significant supplier of fasteners to Brindon County’s workshops.
D. The Brindon Bolt Barn’s operating expenses have not increased this year.
E. The Brindon Bolt Barn is not a company that gets the great majority of its business from customers outside Brindon County

Please explain your choices otherwise there is no point in having discussion.
I second B for reasons explained above.
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by blackarrow » Thu Jun 04, 2009 7:52 am
I would go for E too

Was slightly torn between B and E. However E to me is clear winner!
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by xcusemeplz2009 » Thu Jun 04, 2009 8:15 am
i will stick to B , bcoz if the demands will be raised by the remaining firms then it will inc the sales for BB
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by mehravikas » Thu Jun 04, 2009 5:15 pm
IMO - E
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by sudeep_ar » Thu Jun 04, 2009 7:44 pm
IMO ..B

OA please?
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by kaycee » Thu Jun 04, 2009 11:19 pm
thanks for your inputs..OA is E...
There is little gap in choice B. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Though many workshops have closed down & remaining workshops have smaller volume of work to do, but how much impact (in terms of sales/revenue) these will have on BB's revenue is not clear in choice B.

Whereas E is clearly commenting on the impact i.e. GREAT MAJORITY of its BUSINESS

I think I will also go with E.
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by rahulg83 » Thu Jun 04, 2009 11:57 pm
IMO E..you can assume it even before reading the answer choices and that's what i did.. :D
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by lunarpower » Fri Dec 18, 2009 10:50 pm
kaycee:
kaycee wrote:@ankur_ty

its clearly mentioned in the stem that
1 many of Brindon County�s workshops and manufacturing firms have closed down
2 no new ones have opened

Statement 1 + statement 2 + choice B i.e. remaining workshops/firms have smaller volumeof work to do
Together these three facts imply that overall demand of product of Brindon Bolt (BB) would be sharply down.
you're using the wrong type of approach. specifically, you're taking the type of approach that's appropriate to STRENGTHEN questions, not "find the assumption" questions (like this one).

in other words:

STRENGTHEN --> add the answer choice to the argument, and see whether the argument becomes stronger as a result. (this is what you're doing.)

FIND THE ASSUMPTION --> tell whether the answer choice is REQUIRED for the argument to be valid. in other words, you need to pick a statement that is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL; the argument should fall apart if this statement is negated.

choice (b) would be a fine answer to a "strengthen" problem... but, unfortunately, this isn't a "strengthen" problem.
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by lunarpower » Fri Dec 18, 2009 10:55 pm
amazonviper wrote:IMO B. I believe this has to be assumed for the argument to exist since if we negate this effect, i.e. if the units that are open have more business than usual then the steep decline might not happen.
two things are wrong here.

first, this is not the proper negation. the negation of "less work" is "an EQUAL OR greater volume of work", not strictly a greater volume of work.

second, you yourself have admitted that this is a subpar choice: you included the word "might" in your explanation.
when you reverse the correct assumption, the argument MUST BECOME INVALID; there's no "might" about it.

--

the correct answer is (e).

if you negate (e), you get "BBB gets the great majority of its business from outside the county".
if that's the case, then business within the county accounts for only a small fraction of the Barn's business, and so it's impossible for the cited conditions to cause a "sharp decline" all by themselves.
therefore, this line of argument would become invalid.
(notice it's still possible that BBB's business might drop - but not for the reasons given in this particular argument.)
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by mmslf75 » Sat Dec 19, 2009 1:07 am
kaycee wrote:In Brindon County, virtually all of the fasteners?such as nuts, bolts, and screws?used by workshops and manufacturing firms have for several years been supplied by the Brindon Bolt Barn, a specialist wholesaler. In recent months many of Brindon County?s workshops and manufacturing firms have closed down, and no new ones have opened. Therefore, the Brindon Bolt Barn will undoubtedly show a sharp decline in sales volume and revenue for this year as compared to last year.

The argument depends on assuming which of the following?

A. Last year the Brindon Bolt Barn?s sales volume and revenue were significantly higher than they had been the previous year.
B. The workshops and manufacturing firms that have remained open have a smaller volume of work to do this year than they did last year.
C. Soon the Brindon Bolt Barn will no longer be the only significant supplier of fasteners to Brindon County?s workshops.
D. The Brindon Bolt Barn?s operating expenses have not increased this year.
E. The Brindon Bolt Barn is not a company that gets the great majority of its business from customers outside Brindon County

Please explain your choices otherwise there is no point in having discussion.
I chose B, OA is E
1) But guys, dont u think, E goes out of scope.. as the arguement doesnt imply outside customers ??
IMO B is more correct !!

Wat say ?

2) Ron, there are two types of argument namely, DEFENDER type and SUPPORT type (Power Score CR Bible)
I am confused between the SUPPORT ASSUMPTION and STRENGHTEN THE ARGUMENT type

any tips... pleasplease
Last edited by mmslf75 on Sat Dec 19, 2009 6:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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