Critical Reasoning

Questions 12-13 are based on the following.
Record companies defend their substitution of laser-read compact discs (CD’s) for the
much less expensive traditional long-playing vinyl records in their catalogs by claiming
that the audio market is ruled by consumer demand for ever-improved sound
reproduction rather than by record manufacturers’ profit-motivated marketing decisions.
But this claim cannot be true, because if it were true, then digital audiotape, which
produces even better sound than CD’s, would be commercially available from these same
record companies, but it is not.
12. Which of the following, if true, best explains how the record companies’ claim about
the nature of the audio reproduction market could be true and digital audiotape
nevertheless be unavailable for the commercial market?
(A) Most consumers prefer audiotape to long-playing records or CD’s because of the
tape’s durability and compactness.
(B) Prototypes of digital audiotape have been used to make master tapes of some
performances in recording studios.
(C) The manufacturing technology that underlies the commercial production of CD’s
requires equipment very similar to that needed for commercial production of
digital audiotape.
(D) Record companies have not yet solved several quality-control problems that have
beset attempts to produce digital audiotape in commercial quantities.
(E) CD’s are more expensive than long-playing vinyl records by about the same ratio
as digital audiotape cassettes would be more expensive than conventional
cassettes.
13. Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the argument against the
record companies’ claim?
(A) When CD’s were first introduced in the audio-reproduction market, prices were
high and selection was poor.
(B) Record companies are reluctant to attempt commercial production of digital
audiotape until profits from the sales of CD’s have enabled them to recover their
investments in compact-disc manufacturing technology.
(C) Some CD’s have been so much in demand that consumers have experienced long
delays in obtaining copies.
(D) Because CD’s work according to principles very different from those that govern
conventional recordings, commercial production of CD’s requires new kinds of
manufacturing technology.
(E) Any valid comparison of CD audio reproductions to digital audiotape
reproductions must be based on identical performances played back on the highest quality disc or tape player