Information Booth--support question!

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Information Booth--support question!

by amysky_0205 » Mon Dec 10, 2012 6:33 pm
Vitcorp, a manufacturer, wishes to make its information booth at an industry convention more productive in terms of boosting sales. The both offers information introducing the company's new products and services. To achieve the desired result, Vitacorp's marketing department will attempt to attract more people to the booth. The marketing director's first measure was to instruct each salesperson to call his or her five best customers and personally invite them to visit the booth.


Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the prediction that the marketing director's first measure will contribute to meeting the goal of boosting sales?

(A) Vitacorp's salespeople routinely inform each important customer about new products and services as soon as the decision to launch them has been made.

(B) Many of Vitacorp's competitors have made plans for making their own information booths more productive in increasing sales.

(C) An infomation booth that is well attended tends to attract visitors who would not otherwise have attended the booth.

(D) Most of Vitacorp's best customers also have business dealings with Vitcorp's competitors.

(E) Vitacorp has fewer new products and services available this year than it had in previous years.

OA: C

can someone explain other answers especially A, thank u!

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by insanejuxtapose » Tue Dec 18, 2012 9:00 am
C is the only option that I see which is closest in supporting Director's first measure to boost sales

If A is true, then the information booth is repetitive in nature as it would also basically inform important customers about new products & services hence may not make difference to sales.
B- Just because competitors have also made similar plans - does not imply that Vitacorp's booth has to help in boosting their sales. Also more information booths means more choice and information to customer probably also reducing chance of sales for Victorp
C- Customers who otherwise may not attend the booth, may be encouraged to buy more from Vitacorp's once having visited the booth
D- It does not possibly imply that Vitacorp would bag more sales due to information booth, possibly even the competitors have information booths equally good if not better
E- Irrelevant - even if they have fewer new products -does not mean Vitacorp will sell more?

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by mparakala » Wed Jan 16, 2013 3:06 pm
Ans: C

this is the only way that calling best customers can help in boosting sales

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by Tommy Wallach » Wed Jan 16, 2013 3:23 pm
Hey All,

Great discussion here already, but in terms of overall process, I always want to make sure people are making an effort to spot the assumption in the argument, even before looking at the answers.

Conclusion: Sales will go up
Proof: Some of the best customers will attend

The assumption here should be fairly obvious. Why would it be helpful to have your best customers at the booth? They're already your best customers! It's not like you can sell more product to them, or like they need any more information. So we NEED an answer that provides some benefit to having preexisting customers at the booth.

A) This tells us that preexisting customers already know about new stuff. So why would we want those preexisting customers at the booth?

(B) We don't care about the competitors.

(C) CORRECT. In this case, the old customers will help bring in NEW customers, who could really benefit from the information that will be disseminated at the booth.

(D) Again, who cares about the competitors?

(E) If anything, this weakens the argument, because there's less need for the booth.
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by tanviet » Fri Mar 15, 2013 9:43 am
Tommy Wallach wrote:Hey All,

Great discussion here already, but in terms of overall process, I always want to make sure people are making an effort to spot the assumption in the argument, even before looking at the answers.

Conclusion: Sales will go up
Proof: Some of the best customers will attend

The assumption here should be fairly obvious. Why would it be helpful to have your best customers at the booth? They're already your best customers! It's not like you can sell more product to them, or like they need any more information. So we NEED an answer that provides some benefit to having preexisting customers at the booth.

A) This tells us that preexisting customers already know about new stuff. So why would we want those preexisting customers at the booth?

(B) We don't care about the competitors.

(C) CORRECT. In this case, the old customers will help bring in NEW customers, who could really benefit from the information that will be disseminated at the booth.

(D) Again, who cares about the competitors?

(E) If anything, this weakens the argument, because there's less need for the booth.
thank you expert,
did you realize this assumption before going to answer choices.

differently, I prethink a different assumption: the old customer will come to the booth if they are called.
though this prethought assumption is different from the assumption on which the oa is based, I still get the right answer because this assumption bring me closer to the oa.

the matter is why you can prethink the CORRECT assumption? pls help

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by tanviet » Fri Mar 15, 2013 10:04 am
dear Tommy,
naturally, we can prethink the assumption I mention in previous posting and we can not prethink the assumption you mention in your posting.
the natural assumption will be, if the old customers are called, they will come. your assumption that old customer will encourage new customer to visit the booth is not natural one. did you find out this before or after you read the answer choices ?

we can find an assumption after we read an answer choice and we can explain the question beautifully with this assumption. But the problem is we need to learn how to prethink not to learn the beautiful explanation (sorry, I do not disregard your explanation, your explanation is still excellent because without your explanation, I can not post this idea). the process of prethinking is the main thing we should care. prethinking is key to success and we should focus our discussion on this prethinking.

studying this question deeply, I see this question is hard . I do not realize it is hard because redoing the old question makes us not to think critically because we remember the answer.

the situation with hard problem is that we prethink assumption X but the answer is based on assumption Y and we have a harder time to find the CLOSE MATCH between what we prethink and what the OA is.

How to counter this situation, to counter the differnce between X and Y, ,expert, pls advise.

Tommy, I wish you to explain more of how we prethink the CORRECT assumption. Thank you Tommy.

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by Tommy Wallach » Fri Mar 15, 2013 10:10 am
Hey Duong,

Your assumption should not doubt the premise. Your assumption here is just questioning the premise. Accept the premise as fact, then look for a gap between that FACT and the conclusion.

-t
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