OG Question

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OG Question

by reply2spg » Wed Aug 04, 2010 5:04 pm
Among the more effective kinds of publicity that publishers can get for a new book is to have excerpts of it published in a high-circulation magazine soon before the book is published. The benefits of such excerption include not only a sure increase in sales but also a fee paid by the magazine to the book's publisher.

Which of the following conclusions is best supported by the information above?

(A) The number of people for whom seeing an excerpt of a book in a
magazine provides an adequate substitute for reading the whole book is smaller than the number for whom the excerpt stimulates a desire to read the book.

(B) Because the financial advantage of excerpting a new book in a
magazine usually accrues to the book's publisher, magazine editors are unwilling to publish excerpts from new books.

(C) In calculating the total number of copies that a book has sold,
Publishers include sales of copies of magazines that featured an excerpt of the book.

(D) The effectiveness of having excerpts of a book published in a magazine, measured in terms of increased sales of a book, is proportional to the circulation of the magazine in which the excerpts are published.

(E) Books that are suitable for excerpting in high circulation magazines sell more copies than books that are not suitable for excerpting.

OA A

Can Somebody please simplify this language....I feel that wording is very difficult to comprehend
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by barcebal » Wed Aug 04, 2010 9:47 pm
I'll take a shot at it and let me know if this helps...

Whenever you have a CR question that DOES NOT give the conclusion in the EXCERPT and then asks you to to identify a conclusion you need to look for something that is conclusion material. So often on the CR questions we are asked strengthen questions which relate more to matching MORE EVIDENCE to a conclusion rather than matching a CONCLUSION to some evidence.

That said, when I do these questions I do 2 things:

(1) Find the evidence in the paragraph

"Excerpts offer increased sales and the publisher gets paid a fee."

(2) Read the evidence with each answer choice in the following pattern: "BECAUSE [insert the evidence] THEN [answer choice]"

So here we go

A: Because excerpts offer increased sales and the publisher gets paid a fee, THEREFORE number of people for whom seeing an excerpt of a book in a magazine provides an adequate substitute for reading the whole book is smaller than the number for whom the excerpt stimulates a desire to read the book.

This one works. Because excerpts actually INCREASE sales (instead of making people feel like the excerpt is a substitute) THEN people must not find excerpts to be adequate substitutes.

You can go through each of the others and I think you'll see that the others don't offer matching conclusions or conclusions at all.

Hope that helps!