OG11, diagnostic test - 22

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OG11, diagnostic test - 22

by Pugalenthi » Wed May 16, 2012 7:27 am
22) following several yearsof declining advertising sales, the Greenville times reorganized its advertising sales force. Before reorganization, the sales for e was organized geographically, with some sales representatives concentrating on city center businesses and others concentrating on different outlying regions. The reorganization attempted to increase the sales representatives's knowledge of client's business by having each sales representative deal with only one type of industry or of retailing. After the reorganization, revenue from advertising increased?
In assessing whether the improvement in advertising sales can properly be attributed to the reorganization, It would be most helpful to find out which of the following?
(A) what proportion of the total revenue of the Greenville Times is generated by advertising sales?
(B) has the circulation of the Greenville times increased substantially in the last 2 years?
(C) among all the types of industry and retailing that use the Greenville times as the advertising vehicle, which type accounts for the largest proportion of the newspaper's advertising sales?
(D) do any clients of the sales representatives of the Greenville times have a standing order with the Times for a fixed amount of advertising per month?
(e) among the advertisers in the greenville times, are the more types of retail business or more types of industrial business?
The answer is B

Here is my question....the sales force got reorganized to understand the client's business more to get more advertisements...if that is the case, how could increase in circulation (the sales force is not targeted to increase the circulation but to increase advertisement sales) be attributed to the success of the sales force reorganization? My take was E. what am I missing? Please let me know
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by Birottam Dutta » Wed May 16, 2012 8:17 am
What new information can you find from E? The question stem talks about increase in advertising sales and it does not matter whether the clients are more retail or industry!

For a newspaper, the more the advertising, the more revenue it earns and consequently it can increase its circulation because it has more money to do so. Therefore, by assessing whether sales have improved, you can find out if the reorganisation has been successful.

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by Pugalenthi » Wed May 16, 2012 8:36 am
How about the scenario ...the circulation increased for some other reason that would have resulted in increased revenue? How would one tie this to sales force reorganization?

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by Birottam Dutta » Wed May 16, 2012 9:00 am
Yes, What you say is definitely true. But that is beyond the scope of the argument and among the answer choices, B fits best in the context of the argument. Let's go choice wise and eliminate:

A--- in knowing what proportion is revenue ad sales, we cannot know how much the revenue has increased. We have to find the increment or change in value.
C--- is out of context. We are not concerned with the share of retail or industry, etc etc. we cannot hope to find out if revenue from ad sales have increased by knowing about the share of retail and industry.
D--- an easy elimination because it is totally out of context
E--- similar mode of elimination to C

Hope this clears your doubt.